The Never-Ending Story of Me
From moment to moment a drama unfolds within our own minds. We think and feel and tell ourselves stories. We reflect on and react to the world around us and, perhaps more importantly, to the world within us. An inner dialogue runs pretty much unceasingly though our minds. Sometimes we listen; sometimes we barely notice. The commands and assessments of this story line are there all the same, even if the depth of their influence goes unnoticed. But the most dangerous fictions aren’t those we recognize as stories. Of more concern to us here are the ones we assume to be real.
If I were to say that this inner dialogue, as well as your thinking and emotions, are running their course purposefully—that it’s no mistake what you think and feel—this might sound plausible. After all, it does seem reasonable that your mental activity should be consistent with your desires and self-interests. If I went on to say that this activity is far more creative than is commonly recognized, you might start to wonder what I’m talking about.
Normally, when you’re aware of your own internal states, such activities as observation, assessment, and reaction don’t appear to be creative but simply ongoing responses to what is so. We don’t consider that the stories we tell ourselves and the emotions that these evoke create a perception of reality that doesn’t exist without this activity. These actions of mind are not merely observing a world; they are also creating a world.
For example, most of us fail to acknowledge the degree to which we live in fantasies, although with a little honesty and self-inspection they’re not so difficult to recognize. Some of these are rather obvious—pretending to be like the hero in a movie just seen, acting the “tough” so as to impress your buddies, nostalgically indulging old self-images that pop up when we hear music from the past, or adopting affectations at a social occasion. Some are harder to discern—the collective fantasy shared inside the opera house or a baseball game, the notions one has about his country, every religious or spiritual pursuit, images of the future, views of the cosmos or what life is all about and one’s place within it. Regardless of the specifics, these fantasies thrive within the many stories we tell ourselves—in which the central character is usually oneself.
Personal fantasies abound within the mind of every individual, but unless we’re willing to recognize them as such, they’ll merely seem like observations and ideas about reality. These stories or fantasies portray some aspect of what is thought to be true, as well as what is wished or feared to be true, about oneself, others, and life. They are consistent with our beliefs and revealing of our desires and fears. We rely on our stories to position us in relation to every person, idea, and thing that we encounter.
Probably we’ve all had some experience where we caught ourselves “playing the victim,” or generating an internal scenario in which we were the hero, or the martyr, or some such. Our stories help shape our self-image even when we’re aware that it’s often just an indulgence on our part. If we pay attention to our inner dialogue, we can begin to recognize just how many stories roll through our minds—from tiny story fragments to full-blown scenarios that we play out in our internal dialogue and imagination. Once again, the existence of the stories isn’t so much a problem as our inability to recognize them as fabrications.
Clearly we make up and tell an endless stream of stories, and we use them to motivate ourselves and help make sense of our place in the world. In some ways, our stories and beliefs are like wrapping bandages around an invisible “self” so as to make it visible, give it shape, and provide us something solid to relate to. But we should remember, the idea that there is a self being clothed is also something we’ve invented. Our life of mental fabrication isn’t limited to our surface chatter and the complex imaginings that we use to establish our sense of self. We live in and as a complex web of invented worlds that adds to— and in many ways “creates”—our whole sense of self and reality.
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