Meta-Narrative

Listen.  The cynic in me knows that there is no narrative.  Narrative is like events, and events only exist in retrospect.  Our minds cannot process constant, unprioritized time.  We use the concept of events to create an informational hierarchy and divide our past experiences into those things that matter and those that don't. 

Hindsight is 20-20.  Our position currently allows us the retrospective distance to reflect on our past and divide it up into events and experiences.  Our creative minds, born from evolutionary necessity, find patterns, draw conclusions, and make assumptions based on our biology, rational minds, emotions, and social structure, and these events and experiences form a narrative. 

There is no meta-narrative.  There is no narrative beyond what we impose for our own processing.  Cue Sartre's eyeroll and sigh.  Duh, he says.  That's what I said the whole 20th century. 


















I'm going to say something, not because I believe, but because I want to, and might, believe it.  Maybe by the end, I will believe it. 

Does this make the narrative less valuable?  We have this concept that "real" things matter and "fake" things don't, but what qualifies as real in this instance?  Because the universe doesn't have a narrative tattooed into it's matter, does that make our imposed narrative less real?  Our narrative is like time.  Time doesn't exist beyond what we impose. 

I am drawn to story because it takes life and condenses it into an arc with a distinguishable start and end.  Maybe it's not so much that there is no narrative to life - it's that we cannot distinguish narrative when we experience it, when it is being created as it is lived.  Perhaps that's why there have been no novels about one year of a person's life that take a full year to read.  Why read that story?  You're already living it. 



Perhaps I am drawn toward narrative because it allows me to impose a sense of story to my own experiences.  Part of it, I'm sure, is my biological imperative.  I think part of it is emotional imperative too.  Things make so much more sense when you can see them laid out in a series of chapters or episodes.  We can process the emotional responses, and then while the emotions are still fresh, experience the catharsis.  Not so much in reality.  Resolution that in a book takes 200 pages can take 10 years in reality.  There's too much sensory input in ten years for our minds to keep emotions fresh that long.  Our neurological pathways need refreshing.  Hence, story.  Narrative. 

I feel my neurological pathways firing.  My amygdala is in overdrive.  When I experience a narrative, it gives me the presence of mind to reflect on my own experiences, and see my own narrative.  Imposed narrative, perhaps - but, in a sense, even more real for that fact.  It's our minds using a metaphor to process an inconceivable amount of information.  It's me learning to relive emotions and memories long forgotten or stale.  It's an opportunity to learn from my own experiences so that the narrative that will continue to be written is one I will be glad to experience when next I reflect.  



Hey, that totally worked.  I'm pretty sure I believe that now.