The story that we tell ourselves.

 

 The story that we tell ourselves.

I was carrying my hotdog, fries, and drink in Costco and there was no free table to sit at. A voice by my elbow said, “You are welcome to sit here. I am almost finished.” It was an old guy with long hair and a beard, much like me. Thanks, I said, sat down, and introduced ourselves. There was some fierceness to him. I knew someone with your last name, I said, he was my professor at University. The old guy surprised me and said, yes, he was my brother. He is gone now. It made me sad. He said he was in Lethbridge for a class 50-year reunion. Wow!

He told me he visited the Crowsnest Pass the day before, to see a friend who couldn’t travel anymore. Tomorrow, he said, he was going back home to work. Work? I took a deep breath. He was at least eighty years old. Apparently, he is supervising some task force to save one of the Great Lakes on the American side. His brother, who was teaching me in the mid-seventies, exposed me to the idea that we will be fighting for the planet’s survival now, trying to prolong human civilization against people willing to destroy it for short-term gains. What a family! Why are some people willing to devote their lives to future human beings whom they will never know? They have a story that they are living here on earth. This guy had a good story. I know many who have dreadful stories. They accumulate wealth and care nothing about others of their kind. They attach their lives to their “investment portfolio.”

Everyone has stories, and to some degree, the stories form their reality. The reality is not what we want it to be, but all our thoughts. Your story includes all your fears, dirty thoughts, deceptive actions, hopes, and dreams, and yes, also your wishes. Those of us who pray mostly tell the cosmic God what we wish for or ask for forgiveness for things we shouldn’t have done in the first place. Often, we include excuses forgetting that the God we are praying to knows all that we are hiding. When we say “God” we have a story in our mind about what God is. He or she, if you wish, is all of what the story says, but there is no cheating. Cheating is only available for living humans and there is a price for it. He is a loving, forgiving God, but we call Him Father or our Father in heaven. A loving father is always concerned with how the children are brought up. If he teaches them to cheat, steal, and so on, he is not a good father. He will pay a price just like anyone else.

I invested a good portion of my life in studying subjects like memories. It is fascinating how it works. A game is played in each human mind. The experts say that we are our memories, but it’s not as simple as that. We forget much more than we remember. “How soon we forget.” What we remember is not what really happened, but the last version we made up the last time we focused on it. The reaction of others who may have the same memories also becomes a part of our memories.

When someone is telling a story, we often hear them say, “everyone has seen it. It’s true.” Not so, as any court official can witness. People remember the same event in different ways. The memories are tainted by what they want to prove, which will match their personal interests. They will be convinced that their story is true, but a camera may prove otherwise. Even a camera is not foolproof, since a human interprets what the camera records. Interpretations may not be the same. The angle of the camera matters. A portrait can be complementary or damning. It will change the story.

Now, in the year 2022, the story of most humans has changed. The story of the last hundred years was full of hope and promise. All eyes were trained on the West and its ever-growing economies. The political system of democracy insured a fair chance of success. People willingly worked, saved, and invested. Billions of people not fortunate enough to share in the good life could see on the newly invented electronic devices’ screens that a better story is possible, and they dreamed. The bubble of hope grew thinner and busted. The elite class consolidated its power and democracy lost the ability to guarantee a reasonably good life in exchange for work.

Beginning in China, a movement started spreading amongst the young to give up and do nothing. Young people don’t foresee a future like their parents had and give up on the American dream. They don’t have children, don’t buy homes and work to improve them, and rarely bother with higher education. They expect the world to burn down, flood out, or be destroyed by nuclear weapons. Many live on a trip of illicit drugs or alcohol. In China, they no longer are willing to work 9 to 9 for $10,000 a year and here they don’t wish to work for the benefit of large monopolies and billionaires.

There is a better story. People working for a better world for all. It can start somewhere and spread amongst all humans. It must start amongst those who have got; not fought over by those who have not.

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