When someone tells me something, I tend to not buy into it in the same way as they sometimes seem to do. I have noticed that if that’s too obvious, they can get upset, so I have learned to play along to some extent.
Why don’t I buy into the story? Because it’s just one of many that all hold some validity, and no story can touch reality.
CONVENTIONAL SENSE
Of course, a story can be more or less accurate in a conventional sense.
Often, it’s not that accurate. They may misunderstand something. Their story often says more about them than the world.
THE WORLD IS MORE THAN AND DIFFERENT FROM OUR STORIES
Even if it is relatively accurate, it’s not how the world is.
The world – whether it’s a person, situation, object, or something else – is inherently more than and different from our stories.
Our stories are questions about the world. They are maps that highlight some features and leave a lot out, and they are made up of something different from what they point to. They are made up of mental representations, and what they point to may be a person, a situation, an object, etc.
Often, we only glimpse a small part of the fuller picture.
Our stories reflect our own perspectives, biases, limited understanding, limited experience, hangups, hopes, fears, worldview, and more.
A person is infinitely more than any label, identity, or story we have about that person. They are infinitely more than any action they did or words they said. They are infinitely more than any patters we think we observe in their behavior or words.
If we knew more about someone or someone, we would understand it in a very different way.
If we had a different worldview, we would understand them or it in a very different way.
In my experience, the more I understand about someone or something, the more kind my stories about it are.
MY OWN STORIES
This is really about my own stories. I know they are not true in any full, final, or absolute sense. They are questions about the world. They are a starting point for exploration, at most.
Of course, there is a difference between a general understanding of this, and recognizing it in the story that’s here.
Also, there is a difference between a global conscious view on this and the stories parts of me operate from. Many parts of my psyche hold onto painful stories as truth in order to stay safe, and these are mostly different from my conscious view.
HOW I HAVE EXPLORED STORIES
How have I explored stories?
I got into Fritjof Capra’s The Turning Point when I was fourteen or fifteen and it profoundly influenced how I see stories and worldviews, and I continued to explore this through his other books and books by similar authors.
In the oneness shift when I was sixteen, it was very clear that stories cannot touch reality. They are questions and can serve as practical pointers in a limited sense, and that’s about it.
Since then, I have continued to explore stories through… The Big Mind process and seeing how the different parts of my psyche all have different views, stories, and worldviews. The Work of Byron Katie and identifying and examining stressful stories, and finding the validity in the reversals. Sense field explorations and seeing how the mental field creates an overlay of the world, and creates my whole mental representation of the world. The Kiloby Inquiries which go into this in far more detail and specificity.
Equally or more importantly, daily life experiences of having one story or set of stories, and noticing that reality is different from any and all of them.
And perhaps most importantly, the times when my nature comes strongly into the foreground and it is very clear that stories and the mental field cannot – by its nature – capture reality, including our everyday reality and lives. (The most recent one where the volume was turned up high on this one was the Amma experience last fall.)
The image is by me and Midjourney and is just an illustration and not, as far as I can tell, very obviously related to the topic of this article
INITIAL DRAFT FRAGMENTS
If someone tells me something about someone or something, I know that that’s not how that someone or something is
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If someone tells me something about someone or something, I know that’s not how that someone or something is.
Of course, it may be more or less accurate in a conventional sense.
And I also know it’s…
One interpretation, one side of the story. It will likely look very different from another perspective and with other information.
One aspect of a far more complex picture.
…..
I keep being partly surprised when I see people taking a story about something as true or the full picture or the final version of the story.
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When people tell me something about someone or something, I know that’s not how it is.