Lately, I’ve felt like I lack a narrative structure in my life.
Now, this feeling might suggest I have issues. You know…issues.
Our lives aren’t stories that are conceived, constructed, written and published. They aren’t narrative, in the sense that there is necessarily a coherent story that connects everything neatly together at the end. In fact, at the end, when all is done, most of us die leaving an endlessly long list of things unfinished or unresolved.
And that got me thinking…
As I stared into the mirror – a momentary morning ritual I have acquired – today, I had a thought: What if I was diagnosed with a terminal disease?
It’s a strange thought, in a way, and not directly applicable to “normal life” because being diagnosed creates a close-ended situation. You know you are going to die in a certain set of weeks/months.
I still think it might be worth considering. If you only had one month left where you could be productive and relatively free, what would you do? If you had six months, then what?
The key question: if you knew you had a terminal illness (Alzheimer’s, etc.) but didn’t know how long you had before it would prevent you from living as you like, what would you do? You can’t spend all your cash on one big vacation…you can’t abandon your responsibilities because you still need a home, health insurance, and so on…
You see where I’m going with this.
…and I also wonder – does this give life a narrative? Does it drive me to create the story that might otherwise be lost as I simply wander from day-to-day, with no agenda or thought about purpose?
You still see where I’m going with this….
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I think it may…
A quote from one of my favorite movies: “My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.”
JVTV means more to me than most movies, because of where I was in my life when I first saw it.
When I was about 17 it seemed certain I would die. The only remaining question was ‘Months or years?’ For some reason that made living suddenly much more important.
I know I am a different person that I would otherwise have been. It is hard to become upset with the trivial. All life somehow seems more like a gift, and a subtle sense of graditude underpins almost every moment.
Another quote: “Thank you for my life… I forgot… how big…”
Very compelling train of thought. I won’t assume that I see where you’re going. In the spirit of full disclosure: I can tend to fixate on the obvious — if I did that here, I’d come up with the following.
You’re feeling the Nagging of the Awake, spurred by that ever-present question that, while quietly voiced inside your head, is nonetheless deafening: “Why am I here??”
Or some variation thereof. “Why am I doing this?” “Is this what I should be doing with my life?” “Should I be doing this with my life here?” Could be a lot of things. Maybe you need more stimulation than you’re getting at the moment. Or you’re getting too much stimulation. Or too much of one type.
Maybe it’s the antibiotics.
I think that lives very much do have a narrative — but often, sadly, it lacks context until the end. My own life so far I can easily separate into phases — separated by epiphanies. Not as dramatic as it sounds. More like this: I’d be going merrily along, doing my thing, and then…ummm…all of a sudden — no merriment. Boredom. Dissatisfaction. Malaise.
Of course, what had happened was that I’d wandered into some different place. We’ve all been there. We all have our names for it. “Cognitive dissonance” is the term that works best for me, because I’ve always thought that it has one of the best definitions ever: “the feeling of uncomfortable tension which comes from holding two conflicting thoughts in the mind at the same time.” I mean, ain’t that just *it*??
So, in cognitive dissonance I’d stay, until the psychic forces came into proper alignment. Read: epiphany. Some moment of awareness. Or a deeper sense of peace, or connection to the universe. Some resolution to perceived confusion or dissatisfaction. Graduating to the next level of self-awareness on Maslow’s scale. A deepening individuation, some greater recognition of myself for who and what I am. Maybe a small tick up on the evolutionary scale. I don’t really know — suffice it to say that, after I had this “moment,” I felt better, characterized by a very strong sense — yep. The Ah-ha! moment. That grand feeling that, finally, I got it. Really *got* it. And that I would never be lost again. Accompanied — always — by a sense that, up until that moment, I was totally clueless, barely recognizable to my new higher self, shiny with fresh enlightenment. What has followed for me are periods of contentment, satisfaction — dare-I-say — happiness?… and, inevitably, by a Plateauing, followed by the Settling into the Routine…ultimately leading to — wait for it — some dingy new corner of cognitive dissonance.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I think, in our 20’s — at least this was true for me — we “figure things out” through experiencing. Our focus still tends to be largely on ourselves; in Maslovian terms, any external focus we have is mostly social. It’s like we’re trying to figure out who we are in relation to everyone else. Maybe trying to find our tribe. Testing the waters to see which pool we like the best, trying out different paths to find one we feel good about following for awhile. In our 30’s, we follow the path. We stick with it, and with people, we want to see where it goes, where we go with them. The first half of my 40’s have been characterized by a realization that everything I have and am at this moment is a function of the choices I’ve made up to this point — a recognition of my narrative, so to speak.
Maybe what you’re feeling as a lack of a narrative is actually some recognition of what your narrative is — ??
Couldn’t you just simply say “life is a journey, not a destination” and, yes, you DO have to create the story or it will all be just a boring waste of time?
My friend Jack recently suggested that narratives are overrated. Constructing a narrative–a “point” or “moral”–when you tell your story has two effects. First, it tells the listener what they’re supposed to learn. Second, it interferes with learning anything else. The second effect is obviously bad. The first might make you look smart, but it insults the intelligence of your listeners.
It’s possible for a listener to think many things about a story, especially if you leave in all the details that don’t support what you think it means.
Over the last month I’ve been turning over three questions in my mind. The first is the traditional, ‘what would you do if you won the lottery’, and its corrolary ‘how can you make that happen without winning the lottery’. The second is ‘what if you lost everything you have’. The third is ‘what if you got everything you want’.
For me, this boils down to two things: what do I have – what kind of life have I built for myself? And what do I want?
Those sleepwalking people are the ones who react instead of acting; who avoid pain instead of pursuing pleasure. I am lousy at identifying pleasure. The little voice that tells me what I want is very faint.
I don’t know where I’m going with this; maybe I shouldn’t try to construct a narrative about it. Anyway, you’d like Jack.
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