Two Stories You Live In
These two stories are playing at the same time and you are in both.
One story is playing inside you and the other is on the outside. The outer story often looks like the bigger of the two but actually might not be.
Both are important. They play together.
The inside story is obviously personal. To begin with, it is a mystery. For most of us most of the time it isn’t clear what our purpose in life actually is.
The inside story also involves pains and pleasures of many types and intensities. Addictions and other distractions often come along as people attempt to heighten pleasure and lessen pain.
We also are living within an outside story. First, like the inside one it is shrouded in mystery. My take is that all of us think that if we can figure this one out, everything will fall into place and we will be happy. With this as the only acceptable outcome, most of us then try to find the simplest explanation that fits our happiness requirements.
It is a testament to the power of our mind’s ability to make thoughts disappear when they don’t fit our understanding of what we think this outer story is. Everything that doesn’t fit our worldview is thrown into a box, taped shut, labeled with something like, “Only stupid people think this!” or “Conspiracy Theories!”, and then tossed into the middle of The Sea of Forgetfulness.
Fortunately or unfortunately, as we grow and hopefully mature, some of these boxes wash back up on shore and their contents spill back out. We discover, for example, that we were raised a certain way and that others were raised differently. At first we automatically defend as normal what we have experienced, but later, hopefully, we learn the incredible value of listening and reading the thoughts and experiences of others.
Our outer story begins, often against our own wills and inner stories to deepen and expand.