This is both a mini rant and a minor strategy for success.
Fiction is everywhere, people are more concerned with it than their own lives a lot of the time. Books, films, theatre, TV, podcasts, cartoons, fables, video games, even some poetry and songs all shower us with narrative form. This is how events play out, one after the other, all connected, all meaningful and that people fall into neat categories. Good guys, bag guys, love interests, helpers, villains and of course, the main character. A special person that the whole world within the narrative is designed to support or challenge or direct, but a world which ultimately exists for them.
So many believe themselves to be the main character. That they have the right to whatever they need or want because they are the protagonist and its OK to screw people over because they aren't as important, they are only minor or bit-part characters. They walk around with the moral superiority of "the good guy" regardless of how they actually act, wearing their rationalisation as a cloak against the consequences of their own actions. Anything they did was necessary, understandable or justified, and anything anyone else does is either helping them or are the actions of bad-guys. The unjustifiable arrogance of people convinced of their own "main character" status is beyond reason and drives me mad on a daily basis.
Then there are others, people on here who claim the villain role. Everything they do is wrong and terrible, if there is bad in the world, it is their fault. They are corrupted, they are cruel, they are weak and their existence is a blight upon the world. They hurt people without even trying. Everyone else is more worthy, more right, more just, and if anyone blames them of anything, of course, somehow, the accuser was right to blame them, because they are the villain. And as wholly and completely wrong all those "main characters" are, the self-proclaimed villains are just as wrong.
That isnt to say that narrative thinking is wrong, far from it. I found in my journey through depression (and out the other side) that narrative is essential. We ascribe meaning to our surroundings, tell the stories of how things are and how they should be, and WHY they should be that way. We tell ourselves that our stories will have happy endings, that they have meaning. I have found that one of the things depression eventually robs you of is your ability to ascribe narrative to things. Some people see the world devoid of any narrative. Events just happen, we are all just matter, nothing has meaning and everything ends, so why struggle? Life is inherently difficult afterall, if nothing matters why fight? You either find your own reasons to try which outweigh the struggles, or you don't, but what narrative you tell yourself is just as important as if you have a narrative at all.
I have been having a bit of a tough time lately. Work sucks, my commute is killing me and I am standing on the precipice of changing almost every aspect of my life all at once. Leaving my job with nothing guaranteed lined up, moving home and city, moving far from any of my friends, and attacking the labyrinth of red tape necessary for an Englishman to marry a foreigner. (The UK government have really tried to be dicks about it.) Hardly the worst, but for someone who thrives on stability, the biggest upset of the status quo in my entire life. It has begin to really wear on my mental health again. I can feel the pressure building and my mind straining from it, but today I reminded myself of my narrative. This isn't an ordeal meant to break me, this isn't a battlefield of obstacles and an uncertain future. This is the trial to overcome, this is the story of how I got my life on track, this is what I will tell my new friends and colleagues when they come over to my home and my wife wows them with her cooking. (Of course I do my share, but she is the brain in the kitchen). This is the turning point that made it all possible. I just have to rise to the occasion.
Narrative is essential to our mental wellbeing. If we tell ourselves we are doomed to endless pain and suffering, we will find it so much harder to find the strength to keep fighting. Sometimes these stories are just comforting lies, but sometimes they are the motivation we need to make those stories come true.
Fiction is everywhere, people are more concerned with it than their own lives a lot of the time. Books, films, theatre, TV, podcasts, cartoons, fables, video games, even some poetry and songs all shower us with narrative form. This is how events play out, one after the other, all connected, all meaningful and that people fall into neat categories. Good guys, bag guys, love interests, helpers, villains and of course, the main character. A special person that the whole world within the narrative is designed to support or challenge or direct, but a world which ultimately exists for them.
So many believe themselves to be the main character. That they have the right to whatever they need or want because they are the protagonist and its OK to screw people over because they aren't as important, they are only minor or bit-part characters. They walk around with the moral superiority of "the good guy" regardless of how they actually act, wearing their rationalisation as a cloak against the consequences of their own actions. Anything they did was necessary, understandable or justified, and anything anyone else does is either helping them or are the actions of bad-guys. The unjustifiable arrogance of people convinced of their own "main character" status is beyond reason and drives me mad on a daily basis.
Then there are others, people on here who claim the villain role. Everything they do is wrong and terrible, if there is bad in the world, it is their fault. They are corrupted, they are cruel, they are weak and their existence is a blight upon the world. They hurt people without even trying. Everyone else is more worthy, more right, more just, and if anyone blames them of anything, of course, somehow, the accuser was right to blame them, because they are the villain. And as wholly and completely wrong all those "main characters" are, the self-proclaimed villains are just as wrong.
That isnt to say that narrative thinking is wrong, far from it. I found in my journey through depression (and out the other side) that narrative is essential. We ascribe meaning to our surroundings, tell the stories of how things are and how they should be, and WHY they should be that way. We tell ourselves that our stories will have happy endings, that they have meaning. I have found that one of the things depression eventually robs you of is your ability to ascribe narrative to things. Some people see the world devoid of any narrative. Events just happen, we are all just matter, nothing has meaning and everything ends, so why struggle? Life is inherently difficult afterall, if nothing matters why fight? You either find your own reasons to try which outweigh the struggles, or you don't, but what narrative you tell yourself is just as important as if you have a narrative at all.
I have been having a bit of a tough time lately. Work sucks, my commute is killing me and I am standing on the precipice of changing almost every aspect of my life all at once. Leaving my job with nothing guaranteed lined up, moving home and city, moving far from any of my friends, and attacking the labyrinth of red tape necessary for an Englishman to marry a foreigner. (The UK government have really tried to be dicks about it.) Hardly the worst, but for someone who thrives on stability, the biggest upset of the status quo in my entire life. It has begin to really wear on my mental health again. I can feel the pressure building and my mind straining from it, but today I reminded myself of my narrative. This isn't an ordeal meant to break me, this isn't a battlefield of obstacles and an uncertain future. This is the trial to overcome, this is the story of how I got my life on track, this is what I will tell my new friends and colleagues when they come over to my home and my wife wows them with her cooking. (Of course I do my share, but she is the brain in the kitchen). This is the turning point that made it all possible. I just have to rise to the occasion.
Narrative is essential to our mental wellbeing. If we tell ourselves we are doomed to endless pain and suffering, we will find it so much harder to find the strength to keep fighting. Sometimes these stories are just comforting lies, but sometimes they are the motivation we need to make those stories come true.
