We Are the Story Tellers
Because we are the stories
Humor and Speculation
We who have the writing bug are obsessed with telling stories. We who believe in the Age of Aquarius and reincarnation may even claim to have been telling stories forever — lifetime after lifetime.
Story telling may be the whole reason we are here in the flesh. Rumor hath it that all these souls got together on the Other Side and had this massive production meeting where each aspect of this movie was mapped out — from storyline to subplots, to special effects and casting.
But, while we’re all in this effort together and have agreed on its general direction, some of us had slightly different artistic visions from the majority. Which is why there may still be elements of Improv in the final result.
The spiritual types call it Free Will. The producers call it Out-of-Town re-writes.
Then, too, there’s the complication that each of us thinks we are the Star. The producers tried to explain to us that we are an equal company of repertory players, that there can be no large parts without the total support of the small parts and stage crew. But we forgot this as soon as we put on a body-costume. Immediately the smell of greasepaint (or its modern equivalent), and the swish of exotic material gave us delusions of grandeur.
Just like every other time we were here! The more things change, the more they stay the same.
As we each have our own perspectives on the main story, we also each have multitudes of other stories that we want to tell.
A new story of mine is about not feeling guilty for the advantages I was born with.
I did feel guilty for quite a while, upon learning of all the people in this world who were born in poverty, female, and with different skin colors. Like a good white liberal, I bought into the idea that since I’d benefitted all my life from White Male Privilege — a system that discriminates against all of those others — I should feel guilty about it. I have benefitted from it, there's no denying.
But in the light of this new information that we are all divine souls who volunteered for these different experiences, I now think that my fellow beings need my compassion, understanding and political support in this world, rather than my guilt!
How is my guilt going to help anyone to change their worldly situation? It isn’t. It’s just self-indulgent, as though it gets me off the hook as long as I feel bad about it. Wrong! We need brave action in this world, not bathos. We need assertiveness, not sentimentality.
Every good story needs a conflict for the hero to join. Each different kind of hero gets a different kind of conflict, whether internal or external. And once that conflict is won or survived or passed into a previous lifetime, there must be a new conflict for the hero’s story to continue.
When there are no more conflicts, there will be no more stories.