I’m addicted. Beyond saving, it seems. I can’t break the habit, go cold turkey, or execute any of the necessary clichés to exit the atmosphere of this gravity well. It seems to zap away all of my free will, sending me down paths that I might never have chosen without the insidious influence of this most pervasive of metaphorical narcotics. Each action seems to be traceable back to it, across every part of my life, every chapter. What am I so addicted to that I can’t even establish cause and effect anymore? So ensnared by that even the bravest, pluckiest therapist couldn’t unwind things completely? Stories.
Those supposedly kid-safe laminates with mice that liked cookies and dinosaurs, dinosaurs, dinosaurs. Damn you, Bernard Most, for introducing me to the direct feed, for producing the first hit that I could take all by myself. From the bloodlusty badgers in the Redwall series to the strangely sex-filled dragony adventures of various “young adult” novels from the library to a 5th grade reading of White Oleander (that I don’t think I’ve recovered from yet), books were introduced and took hold. Mostly that kind of fiction where you became the main character, feeling as though your life was suddenly and forever lived through the heroic, special, wonderful, trepidacious experiences of this protagonist (I’m looking at you, Potter). What’s wrong with books? They’re full of stories. They’re an even more mainline access point than a high school history teacher who was convinced that “we really have to go in and mess that guy up before something really bad happens” (an early 2000s story about Iraq). And I’ve fallen for them, all of them (except that high school history teacher’s). The early 20s stories about sex and its lack or abundance. The LinkedIn story about being a great success and making well-reviewed speeches at Davos. The Financial Times story about how our times are financial that we’re living in. The sci-fi stories about how just wait 300 years and everything will be exactly the same, but with more space. Hooked. Lined. Sinkered. What does all this storying do to a person? Instilling values, goals, and fears in subconscious places, these vermin-programmers replicate in the brain, a bot-net triggered by narrative patterns. The resulting situation-driven drunkenness leads to autonomic responses that seem to come out of nowhere. Net worth calculations, career trajectory comparisons, and casual acceptances of time-wasting activities (i.e. filling out a template with a tiny modicum of creativity, over and over and over and calling it work with an ethic). So what’s one to do?
I’m convinced that there’s no escaping these little parasites. They’re like gut bacteria, feeding on our food, but also helping to break it down. It’s not an accident that long non-fiction books about civilization and strategy all bring it all together by concluding that humans are narrators, collective narrators. Our herd animal nature is brought together with stories. Even when we’re alone we get by with acceptable tales of why we’re alone and why we’re not lonely. So there’s no getting rid of them. But one can make an inventory. Flush as many out at once as possible and slowly reintroduce them after a month (the Story Whole 30). Pick a single story and worship only that one (meditators and yogis, this one’s for you). Pick a few stories, the ones that spark the most joy, and only leave space in your brain for them (the KonMarie Story Method) – be sure to respectfully and thoughtfully hold the ones you get rid of while sitting in the middle of your floor before you cast them aside or emotional blowback will ensue. I’m not sure if Stories Anonymous would work; everyone would just want to tell the story of how they started getting rid of stories after realizing that stories were ruining their lives. And that would basically be a story orgy, a Hunter S. Thompson-style story bender in a group. Maybe StoAnon meetings would consist of doing things that don’t have stories associated with them. Lighting matches and staring at the flame. Dropping oranges from shoulder height and observing the bruises. Pretty much middle school science class, a literature nerd’s nightmare. Just don’t brew any coffee for these meetings.
When a story is running in the background unnoticed, it’s a problem. That’s when you have to go into your brain, read the story out loud, write it down, and ask where it came from. A little internal investigative reporting to tell the news-reading public about the latest unbelievable thing that teen neurons are doing these days – tide pods, mimicking the mistakes parents made, Veblenian social comparisons/climbing. Seems worthwhile, so far. But what if I get addicted to the story that says I need to tell my story to whoever will listen? Too late.
Roman Ryan 