More things that don't make sense.

As this is our last class session and our last blog entry, I naturally still had no idea what I was going to talk about. What has interested me most this semester is story. The story of religion, the stories we play out online, the stories we play out in video games, and why humans like stories. I like stories--I have always loved to read and have learned a ton through stories, and also like to tell stories (sometimes.) But WHY do humans have this need to create a narrative that has a beginning, middle and end? Why does everything need to be neat, no loose ends, why does everything have to be part of something larger that we are working toward? Why do need to have somewhere we came from and somewhere we're going? Sometimes things just suck. Sometimes things just happen and they just....happen. Sometimes we work a crappy job to keep a crappy apartment in a crappy city and we're not really doing anything but turning our wheels and we're not living a "story" at all, but we still TELL ourselves stories. ""Well, when I get my next paycheck..." "Well, I came from a hard place..." "Well, this is temporary..." "Well, at least I'm better than before..." These are all forms of stories that make our lives seem bigger, seem better, seem larger. They give meaning to our lives in ways that nothing else can. I believe that religion and story are VERY similar....I would even argue that religion wouldn't exist without story. I mean, how do we learn about religion? Through parables, stories, sermons, ect. I feel like Christians have this notion (although probably not all, I'm speaking to some stereotype in my head here) have this idea of "this is where I came from, this is where I'm going, this is how I get there, these are some obstacles that are my plot line, and then there will be this glorious hero-esque ending." And as humans we don't want to die but we are going to die so we might as well construct some sort of meaning around that and gosh darn it stories give us that meaning, thus, religion. (I hope this doesn't sound offensive in its simpleness, because I truly don't mean it that way, but it's also not a secret that I am not religious and either don't know what I believe or don't believe in anything and I'm still working out the difference between the two.)

But here's the problem for me: I also believe that life is just messy. People die. People use you. Friends leave and come and go and bad things happen. But good things also happen--you meet people, you make some friends, you put your feet into the ocean for the first time. Blah blah blah everything in between. But what if these are just events that happen instead of stories? What if there IS NO MEANING?! What if as humans we lost this idea that we are bigger than just the cells we live between and we actually are just cells and synapses and the information that fires between them? 

Even typing this I get stressed out because I love stories, people. I love them. I can think of many stories that have changed my beliefs about life and about myself. But I also believe we can deceive ourselves with them and other people can deceive us with them. And I hate to think of myself as 1) able to be deceived or 2) capable of deceiving others. But I fear that these might be the only two roles of stories. Because if everything IS just random and life is just some sort of frenzied card dealing, we ARE deceiving ourselves through the stories we tell and form, especially large systematic stories like religion. We are assigning significance to things that don't have significance and this has the potential to be damaging.

People spend so much time in story. It's no surprise to me that things like video games and religion get compared because to me those are both just stories and we're drawn to them because humans are drawn to all stories. We watch movies, we gossip, we read books, we learn history, we play video games, we listen to other people. There is almost nothing in our culture I can think of that does not contain some sort of story. Even as consumers we are drawn to stories--TOMS shoes, for example. If you read the company's book (I've read a lot of random stuff) the founder talks a lot about the story he created around the company because people buy into stories. And people like to be part of stories. Because when they are a part of a story they matter. And people like to matter because mattering means that when we die we will still be here and none of us want to be gone. Stories also help us learn, help us grow, help us not do what that guy over there did, help us think we can get to the top too if we work hard enough. But here is where the lines blur for me: What is the value in the story of a violent video game? Is it usually set up so the person who is playing is the "hero?" This is a true question I hope someone can answer because I don't play video games, and I'm curious. Because if the story is just straight up killing and shooting, that is the kind of story that would confuse me greatly. Are they usually you vs. the "bad" guys? And if the narrative is bad, like in the Columbine game in our reading from last week, what does that mean? Is that game then "bad?" Why do bad stories have no value? Can't bad stories still teach us things?

What if this is all just pretend? What if stories are just socially constructed because our brains simply evolved too far and we can't stand our existential problems? That, friends, kind of scares the pants off of me. I know I'm not the first ones to think these thoughts and I'm going to be far from the last one to think these thoughts but I really struggle with this idea that life might not be a narrative and if it's not, what is the harm in pretending that it is? And, getting into  a new problem with technology: our lives now CAN be fully 'just a story' we tell. What does it look like when our lives DO become a narrative--through blogs, facebook, avatars....can we create a life for ourselves that is ONLY a linear narrative and does that have value? I think for sure it can have a therapeutic value, but can that caricature then stand on its own? And is it you or a different being entirely? And what aspects of your story do you add and remove and WHY and who influences that choice?

...Sometimes thinking about stories keeps me up at night. Also, here is my TED talk for the week:

(Also, just so everyone knows, when he says no one describes their life as reality show, I always do and always have. I'm happy to bask in that uniqueness for a bit.)

(Also, if anyone has found my textbook for class and can return it me, I'd be grateful. Cough cough.)