【人在旅途】 The Story of Ourselves# LeisureTime - 读书听歌看电影
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Self is a curious thing.
It is a curious question whether a newborn baby has any sense of self or not
. The loud cry clearly signals a new existence to the world. But it is
only the baby who could tell us whether it has any concept of itself at the
moment of cry. However, it couldn’t say it at the time, and it wouldn’t
remember it soon after.
But one day, we suddenly start to realize ourselves, anywhere and anytime,
as an image in the mirror, as a sense of pain in the flesh, as a happy laugh
with friends and family, and later also as a feeling of loneliness deep in
the hearts. No matter how different self appears, physical, emotional or
even philosophical, we know it immediately.
So how did it happen? How did we find ourselves? The answer are we found
ourselves through stories – stories that are real, stories that are made up
, stories of others, and stories of ourselves.
The first stories told to us may not even be about ourselves at all, but
about bears, bunnies, and elves. The pursuit of a sense of self was so
strong that we fantasized that we were the bears, bunnies, and elves. One
got rewarded by being honest. One got punished by being lazy. One lived
happily ever after with true love. We had questions, sure. But there were
always answers, answers we believed in. How could we not? The story-teller
knew everything and we were as blank as sheets of white paper.
Gradually we moved on, and started to learn stories about ourselves and the
outside world they were. Our parents gave birth to us. Our uncles were
peasants. The neighbors were friendly people with some secrets. DONOT eat
anything given by strangers. Japanese people were very bad to us some time
ago… The stories endless and our eyes wide-open – we were not bears or
elves anymore, but sons, kids, friends, students, citizens… We were
becoming our “true selves”.
Then things got out of control. So many yet and so different stories! This
is dizzy but fun! We were tired of the old stories anyway. Oh, we liked
the exciting worriers’ world and really didn’t mind becoming one of the
apprentices with swords. We liked the story of someone made it in the world
and living it big and grand. Of course, we also wanted to be a philosopher
who was to solve every problem in life with analysis and logic, or maybe an
engineer with science and technology.
But wait! Why the stories were not exactly the same as they were told before
? And some of them…were actually the opposite!? Weren’t we supposed to
establish a lovely family and live happily ever after? But why escaping
with some forbidden love seemed so romantic and tempting? Weren’t we
supposed to be nice to each other? But why killing people could become
necessary? Weren’t we supposed to give ourselves for the GREATER GOOD
whenever it is time? But why staying alive at whatever cost suddenly became
such an unquestionable and nonnegotiable truth?
We had to make sense out of it, or we were going mad. Let us think, think
hard, before we go actually mad…
Ah! The problem must be the stories. The stories were made-up, not true!
The stories were told by their perspectives, not ours! The stories were
vicious, designed to trap us! They were not obeying the order because they
believed so as we were told. They were just timid! We want to pursue our
true love! We are destined to be worriers and kings!
Then we started to make decisions, judgments, and choices. We had to get
rid those bad stories. It was difficult! It was painful! People were
getting angry and nervous but why would we care. It had to be done. We
were to make OURSELVES!
This was fun. This was pain. This was a lot. This was a while.
But are the selves we made the selves we wanted? We do not know, and we do
not care as much. We are content with the selves we are. We may not want
to become those selves anymore. And maybe selves are not even necessary
anymore.
Instead, we become masters of stories. How could we not be good at it? We
have so many stories – stories we were told, stories we saw, stories we
made, stories of the past, stories of the present, stories of the future,
stories of the many, stories of the one and only , and stories of nobody.
And we are very good at telling them. We can tell the stories as they are,
they could be, and they would be. We can tell the stories from our
perspective, their perspective, and god’s perspective. In fact, we become
such good story-tellers that we can even mismatch different pieces from
different stories and tell it in whatever chronicles we want. Stories are
becoming color strokes at our disposal and we create whatever a painting we
want.
So we start to tell stories. We tell little kids about the baby bears
rewarded for being honest, bunnies punished by being lazy, and the elves who
lived happily ever after with true love. We tell students that how we
worked to make fabulous things happen. We tell people in love that love is
not only about poems and flowers but also about necessities and status. We
tell the ambitious young fellows that Jianghu is a place full of danger and
hidden rules.
We tell story to others. We tell stories to ourselves.
Why we become story-tellers? We don’t know. It should be this way. It
must be this way. How can it be otherwise? Story is how we communicate
with each other. Story is how we continue after we die. It is how we live.
It is how we survive. There might not even be any selves other than the
selves in those stories.
Our stories are ourselves. And we will not exist if not for our stories.
And by telling stories, we are projecting ourselves into the life of other
selves. Isn’t that neat? Isn’t it great for them, for they can use our
stories to find themselves? Isn’t it convenient for us, for we know there
will be part of ourselves living inside them?
We certainly think so. That’s why we love stories. That’s why we tell
stories, the stories of ourselves.
It is a curious question whether a newborn baby has any sense of self or not
. The loud cry clearly signals a new existence to the world. But it is
only the baby who could tell us whether it has any concept of itself at the
moment of cry. However, it couldn’t say it at the time, and it wouldn’t
remember it soon after.
But one day, we suddenly start to realize ourselves, anywhere and anytime,
as an image in the mirror, as a sense of pain in the flesh, as a happy laugh
with friends and family, and later also as a feeling of loneliness deep in
the hearts. No matter how different self appears, physical, emotional or
even philosophical, we know it immediately.
So how did it happen? How did we find ourselves? The answer are we found
ourselves through stories – stories that are real, stories that are made up
, stories of others, and stories of ourselves.
The first stories told to us may not even be about ourselves at all, but
about bears, bunnies, and elves. The pursuit of a sense of self was so
strong that we fantasized that we were the bears, bunnies, and elves. One
got rewarded by being honest. One got punished by being lazy. One lived
happily ever after with true love. We had questions, sure. But there were
always answers, answers we believed in. How could we not? The story-teller
knew everything and we were as blank as sheets of white paper.
Gradually we moved on, and started to learn stories about ourselves and the
outside world they were. Our parents gave birth to us. Our uncles were
peasants. The neighbors were friendly people with some secrets. DONOT eat
anything given by strangers. Japanese people were very bad to us some time
ago… The stories endless and our eyes wide-open – we were not bears or
elves anymore, but sons, kids, friends, students, citizens… We were
becoming our “true selves”.
Then things got out of control. So many yet and so different stories! This
is dizzy but fun! We were tired of the old stories anyway. Oh, we liked
the exciting worriers’ world and really didn’t mind becoming one of the
apprentices with swords. We liked the story of someone made it in the world
and living it big and grand. Of course, we also wanted to be a philosopher
who was to solve every problem in life with analysis and logic, or maybe an
engineer with science and technology.
But wait! Why the stories were not exactly the same as they were told before
? And some of them…were actually the opposite!? Weren’t we supposed to
establish a lovely family and live happily ever after? But why escaping
with some forbidden love seemed so romantic and tempting? Weren’t we
supposed to be nice to each other? But why killing people could become
necessary? Weren’t we supposed to give ourselves for the GREATER GOOD
whenever it is time? But why staying alive at whatever cost suddenly became
such an unquestionable and nonnegotiable truth?
We had to make sense out of it, or we were going mad. Let us think, think
hard, before we go actually mad…
Ah! The problem must be the stories. The stories were made-up, not true!
The stories were told by their perspectives, not ours! The stories were
vicious, designed to trap us! They were not obeying the order because they
believed so as we were told. They were just timid! We want to pursue our
true love! We are destined to be worriers and kings!
Then we started to make decisions, judgments, and choices. We had to get
rid those bad stories. It was difficult! It was painful! People were
getting angry and nervous but why would we care. It had to be done. We
were to make OURSELVES!
This was fun. This was pain. This was a lot. This was a while.
But are the selves we made the selves we wanted? We do not know, and we do
not care as much. We are content with the selves we are. We may not want
to become those selves anymore. And maybe selves are not even necessary
anymore.
Instead, we become masters of stories. How could we not be good at it? We
have so many stories – stories we were told, stories we saw, stories we
made, stories of the past, stories of the present, stories of the future,
stories of the many, stories of the one and only , and stories of nobody.
And we are very good at telling them. We can tell the stories as they are,
they could be, and they would be. We can tell the stories from our
perspective, their perspective, and god’s perspective. In fact, we become
such good story-tellers that we can even mismatch different pieces from
different stories and tell it in whatever chronicles we want. Stories are
becoming color strokes at our disposal and we create whatever a painting we
want.
So we start to tell stories. We tell little kids about the baby bears
rewarded for being honest, bunnies punished by being lazy, and the elves who
lived happily ever after with true love. We tell students that how we
worked to make fabulous things happen. We tell people in love that love is
not only about poems and flowers but also about necessities and status. We
tell the ambitious young fellows that Jianghu is a place full of danger and
hidden rules.
We tell story to others. We tell stories to ourselves.
Why we become story-tellers? We don’t know. It should be this way. It
must be this way. How can it be otherwise? Story is how we communicate
with each other. Story is how we continue after we die. It is how we live.
It is how we survive. There might not even be any selves other than the
selves in those stories.
Our stories are ourselves. And we will not exist if not for our stories.
And by telling stories, we are projecting ourselves into the life of other
selves. Isn’t that neat? Isn’t it great for them, for they can use our
stories to find themselves? Isn’t it convenient for us, for we know there
will be part of ourselves living inside them?
We certainly think so. That’s why we love stories. That’s why we tell
stories, the stories of ourselves.
