PART II
All stories familiar
Even if dystopian and horrifying, they're comforting. Better that than to not have any. There is something very human about them. Not the only thing human, but they're up there with making fire, opposable thumbs, bipedalism, fine motor skills, long distance running, and larger brains.
The brain's function early on was to move the rest of the body. Thus enabling an organism to go to food instead of waiting for the food to come find it. It requires a complex sensing of the environment and moving in response. Significant energy is take up to move and balance — to jump and walk. This is maybe why mastery of the mind starts with the mastery of the body. And sitting the new smoking.
While senses evolved sight, the brain evolved to anticipate — a precursor to consiousness. Now an organism can not only see around it, but see even what is hiding! Leave it a few billion years and you find yourself in the global economic market — our most complex creation — fuelled by a few billion anticipating human brains which in themselves are the most complex structures in the known universe!
Bees, ants and insects in numbers of a few million, can hardly reorganise consciously. Apes, and other primates in groups of fifty can reorganise. Stories create cooperation in large numbers flexible. Think about that for a minute, for it's of no small consequence and no small feat to achieve.
It gives rise to a whole new phenomena — belief. In money, religion, culture, and time. We find ourselves in constant effort to analyse, expect, and prepare. We sign up for insurance, save up for retirement, invest in children’s education, plan to reach office by 9am, hope for a vacation, and fear bankruptcy. These beliefs in-turn shape our stories; and on we go.
Of course, stories are not objectively real, we know that. They are fictions. Yet their manifestations are so very real. They bring us joy and suffering. Hope and regret. They give us power and influence. Belonging and community. We even anticipate what is anticipated of us. An identity is crucial for trust. Trust enables a community. A community, both frustratingly and reassuringly, reinforces your identity.
And Just like that
In stubborn, endless anticipation,
You are everywhere
And everywhen
Except here and now
To simply be, you need no story. Stories have no business for an isolated, disconnected you. There are no problems right in this moment. There is either the serenity of acceptance or the courage of change. Not having to do anything, not have a story, a word, a thought. To handle that is a completely different experience. Most of us could not afford it. But I digress.
Flexible cooperation in large numbers is our ancestral response to the game of life. Therein lies the comfort, familiarity, and lure of stories. From this we have all human ingenuity — empathy, curiosity, creativity and community. The birth of civilisation — technology, art, science and design!
It is quite foolish then, as I held forth earlier, to wish for no story. However, lost in our incessant stories, we often forget that our greatest strength often creeps up as our greatest weakness. This leads me to my next set of curiosities:
How much anticipation is healthy? How much cooperation? For what purposes? For how large a group? How flexibly? Through how many stories? What kind of stories? How frequently?
That may very well depend on what we want! What we anticipate. Where we belong. Who we are.
So back to square one?
