It’s an obsession. What will you do next? How will it end? Where did you begin? Putting it in “context”, we have accepted that our dogma, our truest belief, is that our lives are narratives that must be understood. Even when life is said to “not make sense”, we see this as a liminal experience, which will fold over into a new page, perhaps illustrated, but which will continue to etch itself into the memoir that every day contributes to. Even Nietzsche, the philosopher of going beyond, could not get past stories as a critical element for life (loving one’s story was critical to loving one’s eternal recurrence). Camus and Sartre fared no better; absurdity could be handled if it happened in a pattern and could be condensed to a parable for one while for the other, meaning had to be made and echoed beyond one’s grave (narratively).
Children learn that they must put their projects into context early. Swim team to get into college. College to get into work. Work to find meaning (and fund more children). Of course one could blame capitalizm for stealing our stories and harvesting our children. But the story ur-religion runs deeper. One would next put stories into historical context to explain where they came from, what they are today, and where they are going. Another trap! Story analysis by any other name (history, non-fiction, philology).
What are we to do about our narrative bind? Is there a way off the wheel of stories? I don’t know. And I believe not knowing is part of the way forward. Learning to not need to know is another component. Knowledge is stored in stories. Sought because of stories (where hypotheses come from). “I don’t need to know” is a commonly ridiculed statement; society abhors uncertainty and disparages people who seem to embrace ignorance. Knowledge is power and power is a trap. The cult of knowledge is an assertion that knowing is possible and preferable (propagation in a shareable, legible format is typically part of the game). Of course the story of gravity seems true and therefore urgent to know, understand, and narrate. But is this fact-set more important than the experience of standing under a streetlamp while large snowflakes land on your eyelashes? Does the impossible deftness with which you unconsciously snatch a tomato falling off the countertop matter only in the context of the gravity fact or baseball practice’s impact on your reflexes? I don’t know. I don’t need to know.
“Where does that leave us?” A question that earns its scare quotes. The story of where you are right now, of where I am as I write this; each are on the tip of my tongue because of all that story-making training. Because reasoning is a story. Cause and effect, if this then that. One plus one. Math and logic are valuable. But their conceptual supremacy is suspect. As are the stories for feelings and emotion and behavior. “I know and you need to know” runs the world. “We don’t know and don’t need to know” may be an antidote, albeit one we have learned to deeply fear.
Roman Ryan 