P.O. Box 2285
Framingham, MA 01703


	Home About Contact

33. Story Time

We are, as Spirits inherently, natively, in our bones exuberantly creative and that should come as no surprise when you consider what we are. We go about our creations using thoughts that we weave together into a story. Our stories pretend to understand (which means "to grasp the nature and significance of something"). The thoughts arise, are triggered by what we call The Now: the moment-to-moment flashes of personal experience. And the stories, my, my, my! Although the sad stories are, apparently, limited to about seven basic themes (with loneliness at the top) joyous basic themes seem to be unlimited. Creativity abounds in both the sad and joyous categories of stories.

Apparently, our Spirits have a driving desire to understand everything and that's fine but we should always remember that we can never fully understand anything. The latest proof is The Information Age giving us an increasing flood of data and not enough time to keep up with it. It's hard to make up a story when you don't have all the details and the ones you have keep changing. It used to be easy ("A gigantic eagle laid a gigantic egg and that was the Earth…") but now it's a real challenge to one's creativity.

In rigorously intellectual circles stories are properly called theories, postulates, opinions, hypothesis and sometimes just guesses but they are still stories. You are not supposed to believe (take as absolute truth) stories; you are supposed to use them for your benefit. ('Believe' means to accept something as true which cannot be proved to certitude.)

The Information Age shows us, again, the futility of believing instead of just using (and enjoying) our stories. Stories pretending an understanding of something are patently impossible now with this continuing flood of information. In fact, grasping the nature and significance of anything always was, is now, and always will be, impossible.

Consider what the Bible Story of Adam & Eve (what!) has to say on the topic of understanding.

[Hebrew] Disobedience and Expulsion from Eden (3:1-24) The serpent was craftier than any other wild creature that YHWH Elohim had made. It said to the woman, "Did Elohim say, 'You shall not eat of any tree of the garden'?" 2 And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, 3 but Elohim did say, 'You cannot eat of the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, nor can you touch it, or you will die.'" 4 But the serpent said to the woman, "You would not die. 5 Elohim said this because he knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like Elohim (gods/God), knowing good and evil." (3:1-5)

[King James: Modern] Genesis 3 "He forbid them to eat from the Tree of Knowledge. A serpent convinced Eve to eat the fruit and offer some to Adam. After they had eaten the fruit they realized they were naked and covered themselves with vegetation. God appeared and asked what happened. Eve told God that the serpent manipulated her. He cursed the serpent and damned women to painful childbirth and submission to their husbands. He cast them out of Eden with the burden of growing their own food."

[Douay Rheims] Genesis-Chapter 3 1 Now the serpent was more subtle than any of the beasts of the earth which the Lord God made. And he said to the woman: Why hath God commanded you that you should not eat of every tree of paradise? 2 And the woman answered him, saying: Of the fruit of the trees that are in paradise we do eat: 3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of paradise, God hath commanded us that we should not eat; and that we should not touch it, lest perhaps we die. 4 And the serpent said to the woman: No, you shall not die the death. 5 For God doth know that in what day soever you shall eat thereof, your eyes shall be opened: and you shall be as Gods, knowing good and evil. 6 And the woman saw that the tree was good to eat, and fair to the eyes, and delightful to behold: and she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave to her husband who did eat. 7 And the eyes of them both were opened: and when they perceived themselves to be naked, they sewed together fig leaves, and made themselves aprons. 8 And when they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in paradise at the afternoon air, Adam and his wife hid themselves from the face of the Lord God, amidst the trees of paradise. 9 And the Lord God called Adam, and said to him: Where art thou? 10 And he said: I heard thy voice in paradise; and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself. 11 And he said to him: And who hath told thee that thou wast naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldst not eat?

The knowledge of good and evil was so important to God because He knew knowledge does not equal understanding. The serpent's lie was an impossible story: if I give you all the current data about bananas do you "become aware of the nature and significance" of bananas? You have AN understanding but not THE understanding. Only God could have THE understanding of the "nature and significance" of anything from bananas to galaxies to events in our lives or actions we might take. It's His ball game. Stories are replications of the Apple of Knowledge that the serpent gave to Adam and Eve. The original sin of Disobedience was born, I think, from hubris: a prideful attempt to understand the whole picture. And we can't. Sorry. We are made to enjoy life (See Guide, Chapter VIII, "Immortal Spirit (A)) without fully understanding it.

We use our stories to 'slow down' the flashing moment. We want to analyze what is going on to see if it's good or evil for us. What is good or evil for us? My definition (story) of good and evil, undefined in this Bible Story, is that good is pro-life and evil is anti-life. Anti-life I define as any action that restricts (without a damn good reason, like traffic lights and speed limits) my freedom to have experiences. I don't want my experiences limited to someone else's definition of good and evil. Pro-life stuff almost always pleases me and so I pursue it. Anti-life stuff is repellant to me and I try to avoid or suppress it. Most people, it seems to me, also use the pro-life, anti-life story.

You can't discern anything without some contrast and so I can see that some evil is needed, to contrast the good, to make my decisions easier. I look forward to the day of seeing the results of simulated evil where evil's consequences are played out harmlessly. Maybe the violence in today's computer games, movies and television are producing all the simulated evil one needs to know. (They are, to me, just the updated morality plays of yesteryear.) After all, it is observable that things are much better now than they were. (See Addendum, Chap V, "Things Are Getting Better") In fact, since we are immortal, all our experiences are like the morality plays of yesteryear. We will survive all our experiences and play on in our lives to come. (See Guide, Chap IX, "Immortal Spirit (B)")

Another story of mine says that God is using us to experience (Him) in His Now. He wants our experiences. We are God's sensors, His antennae, his Experiencors. (See Guide, Chapter VI, "TSB Can Know, But Cannot Experience the Future").

Adam and Eve, The Garden of Eden, the Tree of Knowledge, the serpent and the Disobedience may be a myths but the message is logically and observably correct. The biblical God wanted us to stay in His moment and if you need a story to experience it, so be it. Just don't believe it.

Experiences come moment-to-moment and are always in the here and now. A story is an addition to the moment. When you believe your stories you are pretending to know something absolutely that you absolutely cannot. That is hubris, old buddies, because it is just a simple fact that nothing at all is absolutely true. That's what our Information Age, this knowledge explosion, makes very clear by its continual modification of existing knowledge. The probabilities change and give us better and better information to make decisions but they cannot provide understanding of anything. That's God's job.

What is true? Only that you had a unique experience and you reacted to it. Consider a kiss. A kiss is a temporary contact between bodies. Unless you put a meaning (i.e., story) on your experience it has no meaning. There is no intrinsic meaning of a wave kissing the shore (soothing or boring) or a boat kissing the dock (could be a perfect landing or dangerous) or a woman kissing her child (affectionate or just skin checking). There's many a meaning to a kiss. When you add your meaning you are using only probabilities. It's God's job to understand it all, not mine and not yours.

Dat's what I say (and dat's what de Bible says).

<< Back Table of Contents Next >>