Are we the stories we tell ourselves, are we our narratives?

 

 So what’s a narrative?

Basically it’s an account of events, a series of things happenings regardless of them being fictitious or not. Our narratives; stories; fills our lives much like the water fills the lives of fish, and they seem so all-pervasive that we hardly notice them. Dr Phil says: “We don’t respond to what happens in our lives, but what we tell ourselves about what’s happening.                 

Polkinghorne puts it this way: “We create narrative descriptions for ourselves and for others about our own past actions, and we develop storied accounts that give sense to the behaviour of others. We also use the narrative scheme to inform our decisions by constructing imaginative "what if" scenarios. On the receiving end, we are constantly confronted with stories during our conversations and encounters with the written and visual media.” “Since the beginning of time mankind has been a people with a narrative”, Barthes suggests.

The way in which we explain and/or justify our behaviour has more to do with a story being credible rather than constructing a logical argument or providing evidential reasoning. The traditional paradigm of the rational world, which is seen as a scientific or philosophical approach to knowledge assumes that people are logical and make decisions on the basis of evidence and lines of argument, however, some suggest that people are basically storytellers and as such we are subjected to subjectivity, incomplete understanding, and misinterpretation.  

One of the first language skills we learn as children is narration (story telling) and this seems to be universal and across cultures and time. To learn a story, we need no reading or writing skills, it can be passed on orally, argumentation on the other hand, includes both and must be taught. However, even after learning argumentation many people prefer to use narratives. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me today, let me tell you the story!!” probably communicates an event more directly and effectively for most of us than a well thought out and formulated argument.

Through stories we connect with others and often we include analogies and parables in preference to dry data. “He was as big as a house”, “He/she drinks like a fish”, “…as poor as a church mouse”, “you reap what you sow”, etc..

We understand and recognise things and people by the stories we tell ourselves about them regardless of how “true” or “false” they may be. This, if I may suggest, is also the case for the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

We don’t have memories of every moment lived in our lives, we retain only small fragments of experience, but these fragments we use to make up the tapestry of our lives, our “narrative”, that gives us meaning, purpose, direction and understanding of the world we live in.

Our narratives are as uniquely ours, as others are theirs, which may offer one of many explanations for why we at times may find it difficult to understand others behaviours, interpretations and responses. If, as an example, our narrative tells us that “playing our cards close to our chest”is the proper way of dealing with certain situations, we may find someone who openly and demonstratively shows “their hand” to act “incorrectly” which may lead to a lack of understanding and difficulty in communication. Perhaps by recognising and understanding the narratives that drive our responses, we can understand the feelings that accompany them?

Because, feelings whether obvious or not, do tend to colour our narratives. If we were bullied at school, can we narrate the story without experiencing any feelings? If we received an achievement award at some point, can we narrate the story without experiencing any feelings?

If we did something in our youth that we now rather forget about, can we narrate the story without experiencing any feelings? (Conscious subjective experience of emotions= feelings according to Wikipedia)

Example: Feelings can be like an unwanted computer virus invisibly attached to a file you've downloaded from the net. It can potentially crash your system unless you can identify it.

Once we have identified the "virus"(feeling) we can deal with it.

 

And just like there is software available to identify the many viruses, we have "software" to identify our feelings, and as we learn to recognise them we become apt at dealing with them.

What is the "software"?, you may ask. I will suggest that putting a face on our emotions, is our software.

Well, millions of people do it every day, Emoticons they are called......:)

If we are our narratives/stories, the good thing is we can change them if we so desire. We are all given the freedom to choose our attitude towards the events and happenings in our lives and like Dr Phil said: "We don't respond to what happens in our lives, but what we tell ourselves about what is happening".

(ps: about the painting.......a lady of the night watches as the man hides his face in shame)