Story Resolution

My mind hiccups thoughts, random narratives laced with a false promise:

Dog doo inconsiderately on the path, car impatiently close, expected assurances not forthcoming, too rainy, too sunny, too too too, stirring commotion rippling my glassy silence, underwear creeping, aching back, hard chair, foggy mind, anxious energy, decaying global environment; if only I were faster, calmer, wiser…

My mind is offering to sell me an air substitute. The mere offer can stimulate doubt that air is available, can stimulate a belief that I need to find a substitute.

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What is truth, to whom is it told
Once it is said the truth grows old
What once did no longer applies
So change we must if truth survives

What say the leaf as it does fall
Reaching the ground with gravity’s call
Do leaves complain of changing seasons
Leaves know that right need no reasons

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I overheard a conversation between two teenage girls. They stood captivated in the shopping mall, staring at some on-the-edge outfit displayed in a fashion store window. One girl said to the other: “I don’t have the confidence to pull that off! But you might”.

So what is confidence? My youthful narrative of confidence was simple: “I will be confident when I’m skillful enough to accomplish what I intend”. I saw confidence as a security born from self efficacy, it was an internal narrative borrowed from my ambient culture which told me: “You will be confident when you are competent”. Though I desired confidence, a form of inner stability, my understanding was ironically destabilizing. My inner stability was held captive to the unachievable condition that: “when I master my influence over external circumstances, I will have inner stability”. When I see my internal narrative, exposed to the light in words, its incongruence is often sobering.

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Most of our immediate world is unseen, and we’re often  blind to our own stories. Our stories extend our senses into our personal understanding. We build stories of the world in our minds and bodies, stories as models, stories as images, and visceral stories captured in our emotional relationships with the world. These intertwined stories comprise our personal story ecosystem.

We work to integrate what we do see into our story ecosystem. Our stories are theories about forces, intentions, thoughts and interactions. They help us to “make sense” of what we see. We test our stories in our lives; our life is our experiment with our storied theories.

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Eyes closed, he unselfconsciously bobbed and swayed, occasionally mouthing lyrics only he could hear. On a shuttle from Flagstaff to Phoenix’s Sky Harbor Airport, I was sitting behind a middle aged man lost in his mp3 player.  He was the metaphor I was seeking. He reminded me that “when we don’t hear the music, the dancers look crazy”.

This crazy dancer reminded me that our stories are our music. We’re all dancing to our personal storied lives. We’re dancing to the stories that animate us. When I remember that we’re all crazy dancers, I hold the world, and my opinions, more lightly. I’m more inclined to listen for the narrative tunes that animate others, and to recognize the unfamiliarity that my narrative tune may pose for them.