Even as you read this you are just telling yourself a story. That is all we can ever really do. And the great magic in that is the degree of vividness you ascribe to it, so much so that you feel it.
The same way I could talk about in great details about how sour a lemon can be or how much it hurt to skin my knee as a kid.
Painting pictures with our words in each other's minds. Tapestry of neurons coated with joy, love and confusion. The sistine chappel of my subconcious. 25 years spent adoring the walls of my mind with stories about the good times and the bad. Pristine classical figures dance with chickenscrathed shadows I've tried to erase.
Religions, philosphers, lunatics and fables all give us a different shade of how to look at life, which story to believe and even how we should tell it. Moms, dads, exlovers and total strangers all waltz through this grand narrative and sometimes are none the wiser. Because no matter how many times you write it down, or take a picture, the experience will always be subjective.
In the mind of an artist this abstraction is welcomed, celebrated or treated as a magic trick. In the mind of a scientist there are natural laws that govern even the most microscopic occurance that can be observed, recorded and tested. The either is a reality or there is just believe and we've spent millions of years trying to agree on who created the best explainion. Higher evolved being telling ghost stories in highly evolved ways.
Sometimes the ghost stories are of star crossed lovers, what happens after we die or about the weird dream we had last night. Sometimes the stories make us kill each other, give in to madness or hope we are just dreaming.
But they are all
just
stories.
Few people can accept the weight of this and spend every breath trying to capture bits of reality and nail down an explaintion that should be shared by all no matter what. Some people band together and fight wars over this, some people band together and make great music about it. At the heart of almost every telling is either the fear of being wrong or the love not needing to be right. The meaning of life is to make meaning, and we decipher our lives away.
I have decided to take the reigns of the commentary in my head. All of it. I can pull my head out of the clouds long enough to interact with the world. Become a realtively well adjusted memeber of society, pay my taxes, laugh at jokes, be wary of vice and have a say about everything. There is the social construct I've created to do so, the ego and i consiping on this erratic character we love to act as. Artist, runner, American, man, thinker, dreamer, ice cream eater.
I can give you a thousand words as to who I think I am, but even after I've exhaused almost every word in every language, I can never be REALLY sure.
Even mother Terrresa had doubts about her faith. It is in the nature of our species to look up and question, to wonder. And the power is in loving that mystery. Being at home in lack of reassurance. Because when you aren't sure what is real, you can reimagine the world to suit you best.
Wake up, get out of bed but don't stop dreaming.
I'm not saying jump off a high building, rob a bank or try to walk into the women's bathroom. We need order as a means to guage things, but what I am saying is to spend less time out in the world trying to be sure of what everyone else thinks and be comfortable in your own space, the kindom behind your eyes.
The mind is a terriable thing to waste, even more so on telling bad stories.
Even the most noble among us is supseptable to rage, depression or greed but there are no natural laws that commend us to exist totally at those polarities. To have the sweet there will be bitch slaps of sour but there again, is another chance to tell a story.
You could talk about your bad day with a frown and clenched fist, or while laughing and picking your nose. Practice telling a serious or even tramatic occurance in a funny way. Man's second greatest gift is humor.
There will always be room for manners, for mature conduct and even though we don't like to the powers that be require us to drive only so fast down the street. Part of being free is also practicing obeying.
But ultimaltely we must all choose to obey ourselves. That deep core voice within that speaks to us when our passions come alive. Listen closely and hear yourself, the true nature of how you are. We do this by being present and aware of the storie we tell ourselves on the way to work, as we look into a strangers eye. It's easy to feel like my mind doesn't belong to me, I spend half my life hoping it didnt but now I turn the page and on this corner of truth I'll doodle a heart with my own name in it because even if no one understands it, I have to always love myself.
Because in MY story? I decided I'm the hero, the leading man and the sage. I'm the jokester, the ladies' man and the great friend. In MY story, I have a way with words that captivate, transform and even heal.
But they are all
just
stories.