{"id":1167,"date":"2020-11-10T08:59:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-10T16:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/?p=1167"},"modified":"2020-11-10T08:59:40","modified_gmt":"2020-11-10T16:59:40","slug":"%ef%bb%bfescape-from-the-narrative-matrix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/?p=1167","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffEscape from the Narrative Matrix"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Part I:  Reclaim Your Narrative Filter<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Take a moment with me to examine who and what we are.  We are alive. \nWe see, touch, hear, smell, taste. \nTime passes, second by second.  We\nhave certain skills, certain routines, certain patterns of activity.  Such is the substance of our objective\nreality, and on its own it has no meaning whatsoever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thought and meaning are the intersection of perceived\nreality and narrative.  To be conscious\nis to inhabit a world of stories.  When\nwe see a face that we recognize as Mother, what we experience is a personal\nstory of what Mother means to us \u2013 a collection of memories and emotions that\nis unique to each person.  What we\nconsider to be ourselves, our identities, is an exquisitely complex tapestry of\nstories \u2013 layer upon layer \u2013 without which we effectively would not exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human existence, then, is a many-dimensional interwoven\ntapestry of tapestries:  stories that contradict,\nthat reinforce, that evolve and coalesce and crystallize into shared\ninterpretations of reality:  beliefs,\nmovements, philosophies, religions, mission statements, political platforms,\nand ideologies.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sit with that thought for a moment.  Examine the stories that make up your life,\nyour identity, your personal politics, your joys and hopes and dreams and\nfears.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then take a step back, if you can.  Rather than seeing the world through the lens\nof your stories, shift your focus to the stories themselves.  Why<\/em>\ndo you believe them?  What <\/em>does each particular story contribute\nto your sense of self?  How <\/em>did each story find a place inside\nof you?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take care, for this way lies madness.  Our stories define our reality.  If we question too many of our stories, we\ncan lose touch with reality.  At the same\ntime, this way lies enlightenment and personal growth.  To change our personal stories is to change\nour lives.  To change our collective\nstories is to change our world.  And\nwhile we might not agree what change is needed in the world, nearly all of us\nare convinced that we cannot simply continue in the direction we are going for\nmuch longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stories we are told and that we tell ourselves may be\nobjectively true or false.  But very\nseldom is a story entirely <\/em>true or entirely <\/em>false.  Nearly all stories – scientific theories,\nreligious teachings, even our own memories \u2013 contain elements of truth and\nelements of falsehood, degrees of certainty and uncertainty.  And furthermore the truth of a particular story\nmay be relative; it may depend on other stories.  For example, whether or not we believe\nabortion is murder in a particular context depends on when exactly we believe a\ndeveloping fetus becomes a human being.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, each of us feels that the stories we choose to\nembrace are true and that conflicting stories must therefore be false.  To critically examine our narratives we must\nalso relax this conviction somewhat.  We\nneed to explore our cognitive dissonances \u2013 the ways in which our stories\ncontradict each other or place us at odds with our values, our sense of self, our\nstated goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just as our visual cortex must construct a meaningful\npicture from the nearly infinite optical detail we perceive every second, our\nminds must construct a meaningful identity and worldview from the infinite\ncacophony of narrative that surrounds and envelops us.  We all have narrative filters, and they\noperate almost entirely subconsciously. \nStories that mesh with our existing stories are more likely to get in,\nas are stories that are delivered by someone we trust, or that speak to our\nambitions, our hopes, our dreams, our fears, our uncertainties.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is possible to intentionally jam or overwhelm someone\u2019s\nnarrative filter.  We call this\ngaslighting, manipulation, or abuse. \nStories of shame or self-doubt can mask real experiences of pain and\nsuffering.  Stories of loyalty, love, or\naffection can erase past experiences of harm. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also extremely tempting to outsource our narrative\nfilters.  Gurus and religions and dogmas\nand political parties offer us entire narrative frameworks that reduce\nuncertain complexity to confident simplicity. \nI might choose, for example, to embrace Catholicism, an entire\ncollection of stories, and then my priest might tell me to join the Republican\nParty.  If I accept his advice, then by\nmaking just two choices (Catholic, Republican) I now have stories and positions\nabout just about everything:  God, life\nafter death, abortion, sexuality, role of government, gun rights, foreign\npolicy, immigration, and the list goes on and on.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a major problem with this, however, which will\nbecome clearer in Part II.  Aside from\nthe fact that outsourcing our narrative filters limits our potential for self-actualization\u2013\nfor discovering who we really are as unique individuals \u2013 we are also giving\naway our power.  And because there are no\ngods or angels here on Earth \u2013 only human beings with the same flaws as\nourselves – we sometimes find ourselves giving away our power to pedophile\npriests, to sociopathic politicians, to biased journalists, to self-described\n\u201cexperts\u201d, to people who abuse our trust in their stories to manipulate us for\ntheir own ends.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, I ask of you, reclaim your narrative filter.  Rather than focusing on who<\/em> is telling the stories \u2013 and your predefined perceptions about\ntheir integrity and trustworthiness \u2013 focus on the stories themselves.  Ask yourself: \nIs this story consistent with my experience of the world?  Will believing this story help to improve my\nlife, and to improve human coexistence? \nDoes someone else want<\/em> me to\nbelieve this story, and if so why<\/em>?  Is this story meant to distract me from a\ndifferent story?  If so, what stories am\nI being distracted from?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And take a moment to consider those people, in your\ncommunity and around the world, who your stories say you ought to hate and\ndistrust.  Ask yourself:  is it reasonable to think that they really<\/em> want to attack my religion or\ntake away my guns or install a theocracy or destroy the environment?  Or is it more likely that they want to bake\ncookies and raise children and grow gardens and spend too much time on\nFacebook?  Is it possible to begin to\nrehumanize each other, to build common ground, by focusing on our similarities\nand shared interests rather than exaggerated caricatures of our differences?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part I:  Reclaim Your Narrative Filter Take a moment with me to examine who and what we are.  We are alive.  We see, touch, hear, smell, taste.  Time passes, second by second.  We have certain skills, certain routines, certain patterns … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1168,"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions\/1168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.luterra.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}