I grew up subsisting on stories. During all of elementary school I kept a book on my lap and read while the teacher talked. If I wasn’t consuming narratives I was creating them—daydreaming intensely, making up elaborate stories in my head. For a long time I would default to a kind of narrative playacting in every situation, trying to autopredict my own life. When I was 16 and had a crush on a boy, I would come with hypothetical scenarios about how it would play out: we would have a conversation after school at a club event, then we would walk home together, then he would message me to get coffee, then we would hold hands... I didn’t know what the hero’s journey was called, but I already knew its plot points by heart:
Your essay is beautifully put loved how it described the differences, how they’re okay either way, and the idea of pure experience. I hadn’t heard of it called this way, however I recently experienced moments I describe as the heart of understanding which is a non-intellectual way of understanding the root or essence of a person, agenda, or thing. Have you heard anything related to this? Thank you for writing this it gives me courage to continue stepping on this path, it’s difficult because it seems the craziest but the ones that don’t (narratives) actually seem crazier when I set check.
Going to pick up untethered soul, seems so interesting. I wonder about our modern lives online and constantly phone obsessed could factor into living without a narrative. I think modern tech and media have made this way more difficult than ever.
From this, I think you would be interested in Dan McAdams' research on narrative identity of the self (generally, whether narrative is stable enough to be considered a component of personality) and enjoy Nick Chater's "The Mind is Flat" (which is about how a lot of "depth" is illusory, and most of what brains do is improvise answers to what is currently in front of them).
Your essay is beautifully put loved how it described the differences, how they’re okay either way, and the idea of pure experience. I hadn’t heard of it called this way, however I recently experienced moments I describe as the heart of understanding which is a non-intellectual way of understanding the root or essence of a person, agenda, or thing. Have you heard anything related to this? Thank you for writing this it gives me courage to continue stepping on this path, it’s difficult because it seems the craziest but the ones that don’t (narratives) actually seem crazier when I set check.
I loved this!
Going to pick up untethered soul, seems so interesting. I wonder about our modern lives online and constantly phone obsessed could factor into living without a narrative. I think modern tech and media have made this way more difficult than ever.
From this, I think you would be interested in Dan McAdams' research on narrative identity of the self (generally, whether narrative is stable enough to be considered a component of personality) and enjoy Nick Chater's "The Mind is Flat" (which is about how a lot of "depth" is illusory, and most of what brains do is improvise answers to what is currently in front of them).
This post is awesome. Thanks Ava.
Beautiful, Ava. See "Skippy Dies" by Paul Murray:
‘It’s just not how I expected my life would be,'" he says.
“‘What did you expect?’” a friend responds.
“Howard ponders this. ‘I suppose—this sounds stupid, but I suppose I thought there’d be more of a narrative arc.’”
Beautiful post and idea. Rather than a narrative I have found myself trying to live up to a fictional self-image. A related essay https://russroberts.medium.com/the-story-of-my-life-d3c960f71b59