Is it possible that the purpose of story is to help us feel alive, something that we could naturally, spontaneously and effortlessly do as a child but which we quickly got conditioned/storied out of? To connect us with that which we naturally are – joyous, peaceful, limitless, free – alive?
But there’s a catch.
Story demands duality, contrast, this or that, good and bad, so that if we accept story, we have to accept both ends of the stick, both sides of the coin – the good and the not good, the joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. That’s the framework of story. It doesn’t come any other way.
Story demands duality, contrast, this or that, good and bad, so that if we accept story, we have to accept both ends of the stick, both sides of the coin – the good and the not good, the joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. That’s the framework of story. It doesn’t come any other way
And sadly though perhaps fortunately, within this tension of duality, of contrast, it is simply not possible to feel the fullness of anything, whether good or bad, simply because any feeling is counterbalanced by its rising opposite. Birth, as we know, signals the beginning of death, death the beginning of birth. The rise of anger is accompanied by the decline of calm but as anger subsides, calm arises. Story lines are strung by these contrasts and dualities. Without them, there is no story.
Fullness, however, can only be felt when the tension is broken. Like the snapping of an elastic band releases whatever forces were holding it together, so the snapping (out) of story reveals and releases the fullness of feeling, of joy, of peace, of love.
We are completely full of life when we are completely empty of story.
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