Getting down to brass tacks, the human experience — outside of base biology- is nothing more than our personal and societal stories.

This apparent truth is both comforting and disturbing to me. Let's start with our societal stories.

Literally every value system, philosophy, religion and government is based on a story we cooked up in our melons! We have experimented with various kinds of systems — democracies, communism, monarchies — and all of their subdivisions. Rooted in philosophy and religion, these run deep into our wiring.

Our stories, when agreed upon on a mass level, have lead to great civilizations, with awe inspiring structures, and systems of trade and currency that have lead to mass prosperity for many.

On the other hand, our stories have lead to mass extinctions, or serious attempts at it. Great wars have plagued our species and buried past empires and, more specifically, the people that lived in them. Countless people have, and continue to be marginalized at best and imprisoned or killed at worst.

All of this based on our stories.

Nations and their creeds do not feel, currency does not feel, and ideas do NOT feel. Only we feel. We invent our societal narratives and sell them as truths for a myriad of reasons; some more altruistic, and many with more nefarious designs. Of course the ones that have benefited the most people seem to endure.

In a way, it is as if we have been playing make believe for thousands of years.

Think about it. We have assigned value to paper. No wait! That's old school. Now we just enter electronic amounts in bank accounts assigned to people and businesses, and use those numbers to accumulate things, and sometimes move those numbers to other places hoping to get bigger numbers.

Insanity!

Our stories create our identities. How much power did, and do, charismatic leaders have in changing and affecting history? When considering leaders like Napoleon, Stalin, Hitler and the like, it is frightening to think how 1 person's ability to deliver their message (story) can have devastating results. The story is behind everything!

Then there are our personal stories.

Formed from childhood; sculpted and polished throughout life, this is difficult to change, especially if we are unaware of it being a story.

We create our own form of bondage and damnation by not being aware that we are the result of our self-stories. Changing our self narrative is difficult enough even when we are aware of it.

But it starts with being aware. We do not have to be subjugated by our stories. Now changing the narrative is the tricky part, but pretty fucking exciting!

I love the idea of flipping the bird at my past stories if they do not serve me and others well.

Being cognizant of our self inflicted storyline, is the first step to freeing ourselves from aimless suffering.

I think?

I don't know. Just thinking out loud.