if one were to ask me, what is one thing that is
the connection between all human beings, I would
answer… the basic connection between all human beings
is the need for the story, to tell a story and to hear a story…
for a story places us into context and we see what possibilities
exist in that story, possibilities in how we might act or feel or be in
that story… that is the value, strength of ART… it is the value
of creating context for human beings within a story…
a child is born… as all children are born… born into a historical context…
this child was born upper middle class, so the stories or the narrative
the child heard was a middle class narrative, the child’s parents were
liberals and so the stories the child heard were liberal narratives…
and as such, this child didn’t recieve much religious teachings,
and those religious teachings are just another set of stories…
the child was born in the midwest and so the stories were of the
middle part of the country…the stories of Lincoln and the stories
of the values of the founding fathers… these stories gives the child
some context, something to compare his life to… as the stories of
the founding fathers were offered as positive, lessons to be learned,
the child was made to believe that those stories were lessons for
the child to reach… but this is not just a story of a single child,
for every child born in every home receives stories… stories
of the values that the parents wishes to pass on to the child…
each story is a value based story and it point was to pass to the child
what values the child should have, be it bravery or honesty or courage……
that is the value of stories, it passes values from parents/society to the next
generation…what values do you want to pass to the next generation?
the stories we tell children are those values……
the child reaches a certain age, be it 12 or 22, but at some point, the child
becomes an adult and the stories that informed the child about values,
no longer reach the adult… the stories of our childhood no longer
have any value to us because we have grown up, we have moved
beyond those simple children stories… this growth creates a crisis
of sorts…because if our childhood values, our childhood stories are no
longer useful or beneficial, then what stories should we value, what stories
should we listen to?
We discover that our experiences, the things that happen to us and that
we do or make happen… are also stories… and then we listen to those
stories… experience itself creates a story… and because of experience,
the story, we now have a new way of understanding our reality… a new way
of understanding our context within the state, culturally, economically,
politically… experience creates context which allows us to place ourselves
within the boundaries of existence……
experiences replaces stories… but what about those who never made
the transition from stories to experiences? these people still believe the stories
even though experience has shown these stories to be false or not true or incomplete?
quite often what happens is the people don’t learn the lesson from experiences…
or learn the wrong lesson……. if I taunt a dog and get bit, I should have learned
the lesson that one doesn’t taunt a dog… but sometimes people, (oftentimes for ego reasons)
believe that the lesson learned is different then what should have been learned…
for example, if you taunt a dog and get bit, some might learn the lesson that dogs
are evil and deserve to be hunted out of existence…people learn different things
from the same experiences…….
one lesson learned is that from being a child is that possibilities are endless…
you can be anything you want to be… but soon experience teaches us that not to
be true… some have no skill in math and so becoming a teacher in math isn’t very likely…
we discover that doors open, possibilities exist and we only need to enter… to
discover what our possibilities are…but at the same time, we find doors closing…
by experience, I find that I have a fear of heights and so, becoming a pilot isn’t
a possibility, that door closes… from experience, we find that many of our childhood
dreams are no longer possible or no longer feasible or even desired…
doors close, possibilities end…as we grow older, doors once open… are no
longer opened… doors close…the possibilities that existed in youth, no longer
exists as we grow older…the stories that we can become anything we want
is simply no longer true… a child’s dream of playing baseball for a living
falls to the wayside because we know we aren’t good enough, experience
has taught us…another door closes…
and as we go from adult to middle age to old age, the possibilities
that once existed, no longer exists, door after door after door closes…
the possibilities that once seem endless, now seems to be limited…
and what of the stories we heard as children? They no longer exists
for they are seen for what they are, children’s stories…of benefit to
children, not to the rest of us………
the story of our lives, the narrative of growing older is the same for
everyone… from endless possibilities to door after door after door closing…
the story of our lives, of each individual’s life may differ in its
details but remains the same for all of us in it general details…
as we age, we find/discover what the words, pain, really means,
and what the word, loss, really means and what the word, despair,
really means… for we experience these words as we age…
we lose parents, children, brothers and sisters and we know loss…
and we know despair because we experience it and we know pain
because we experience it… from pain of our partners cheating
to our children stealing from us and other such stories of living…
and those days are filled with emotions… but over time, we find
the pain or the loss or the despair grows less, it might never disappear
but power to affect us grow less……
the story of existence for human beings is a story of powerful experiences
and lessons learned and of possibilities growing and then narrowing…
the story of existence is a story of the vast number of emotions we
experience as we travel through this life……
there is a flow to all our lives… a story to all our lives… stories
of possibilities and a stories of experiences and a stories of emotions
and each of us experience the same story from our own
viewpoints and so we can know what others are feelings when
they experience those lessons and possibilities and emotions…
so construct your life, not as isolated events, I was born, but as parts
of a story, a narrative about who you are…and how the narrative
of who you are changes as we age and experience… we have a story
to tell, but the story will change as we grow older and our stories should
change and adapt to meet the changing needs and experiences of our lives.
or think of it this way… we all exist within the river of life, of human experience
but within this river, because of our different locations, we might experience
the river differently, we are all drops of water within the river, and so
some might hit the rocks and some might be swallowed
by the fish and some might evaporate, but the river remains the same…
the individual droplets within the river have different experiences but they
still exists within the river…and that is the human story… we are just droplets
within a large river of life… and our experiences reflect the different possibilities
within that river…
what is your story?
Kropotkin