Entry 179 - Thoughts on Narratives

1/10/20

When you've had your worldview broken, not once, not twice, but multiple times, you might start to question the current one you sit in because you don't want that one to also be broken, but if it is, you would want out. For a period of my life, I believed the local church narrative. For a period of my life I believed the Covenant narrative and then for a period of my life I believed the Orthodox Church narrative, then I finally sit in the Baptist Church narrative. 

You realize there's a major difference between thinking and being. Thinking can be likened to reading a story to your kids about the great adventures of Shrek, and being can be likened to literally being with Shrek as he is on his adventure. Thinking is okay, but being is so much better. The narrative and thoughts about life are okay, but being in the present moment experiencing the riches are so much better. I realized that the fundamental aspect of religion is so focused on the thinking of life, that it becomes almost stale to the soul.

It's like if your mom said, "Alright honey, you can't leave this room, and we can only read you these narratives and books and this is what you have to live through." It feels oddly limiting and not captivating. You're then vicariously living through other people's faiths within those narratives and through their words. Through others, you are actively thinking whether to accept or not to accept it into your personal narrative and what not.

But being is like if your mom said, "Every single day we are going to experience a new moment with new lessons. You're going to fully be there." You're no longer vicariously living through other people's faith and narratives, but you're creating your own by fully being there. Where I'm at in life, I have opted for the second over the first as much as I can. As fun as it is to adopt new doctrines and ways of looking at things and adding to my narrative based off of other people's thoughts and deleting from it, I'd so rather organically create my own narrative through my personal experience.

I am at a point where I feel more free than I've felt in years, not because of religion, but because of the absence of religion by not allowing the various narratives to control and become a part of my narrative. As the Tao Ching states, I observe like a mirror, but it does not become a part of me. I appreciate other people's narratives, but I recognize they are not my own. They're the story my mom might read before bed time, but I know it's up to me in the morning to consciously create and be in my own narrative.