The stories we tell

[Peter Kropotkin]

We tell each other, and ourselves, stories..
"I was driving into town and the car broke down"
is just a story, it might be, might be based on fact,
or it could just be a humorous story.. that only briefly
touches the truth... that is part of the pleasure of
the story we tell...sometimes, we don't even know where
our story is going to lead us.. for most of us, we, ourselves
are the hero of the story we tell...my car broke down
and by my own wit and will, I was able repair that car...
a story where I am the hero... and most of our stories are
just that.. stories with us as the hero..

but some stories we tell have nothing to do with us as being
hero's... some stories are stories of the past... Socrates
brought philosophy down from the stars/sky and turned
philosophy into being about what it means to be human..
the rightful place of the soul of man and how important that is....
That is the story of Socrates, or one of the many stories we can tell
about Socrates... as we can tell philosophical stories, Descartes
began the modern world, to stories about history... the King of France
during Descartes time was named, Louis XIV... Louis the 14th..and his
history was he was ruler of France for 72 years.. the longest king in French
history and this is what happened during his reign.. that is a story
that has had many different authors. From Voltaire to modern day
historians, all of them have told the story of Louis the 14th, and
many of them have look at various different aspects of Louis
history, the events, the laws, the state of the nation, the many wars
and battles that happened during Louis's time...we can tell Louis's
story in many diverse, different ways... and that is another truth
about our stories, we can focus on many different aspects of
every single topic we can tell a story about... for example,
how many different stories we can tell about philosophy?
A dozen, hundreds, even a thousand or perhaps even a million
different, diverse stories about philosophy... we can talk about
the who of philosophy, the when, the how, the where,
and the why of philosophy.. to be honest, I am not even sure
we can run out of stories about philosophy.. we have an unlimited
number of stories we can tell about philosophy...

Right now, I am waiting for a biography of Schopenhauer, that is just
another story about a philosopher, which has dozens of different
stories told about already... we can see Schopenhauer in terms
of his relationship with Goethe or Hegel, or how he impacted
such writers as Nietzsche or Darwin or Freud.. We can make
an endless series of stories about Schopenhauer or anyone else
for that matter...I read a lot of history, which are just more stories
about things in the past.. I read a lot of philosophy and that is just
more stories.. to read, say Kant, is to read a story about philosophy
and its past and its future possibilities..

Personally, I have plenty of stories, I can tell you of stories
of my past, or the history of the 1960's, I was there or I could
tell you a story about Watergate, or perhaps the story of
how I remember watching the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show,
and what that was like.. but those stories, while maybe being
true and a real history of my life, maybe not of interest to you,
because you were born in the 1990's.. when I was an adult
and married.. in the 1990's, I was in my thirties...because I
am of a certain age, I have different stories than you do,
if for no other reason than we were born in different years,
different places, different circumstances... my story has
as one of its central points, the rise and fall and rise and fall
of my social-economic status I have over the years.
my parents were very wealthy, and a few years later,
we only ate because of school lunch programs
and a few years later I was homeless and today,
I live in a million dollar condo and tomorrow, tomorrow
I could be homeless or I may have just retired, I am 63...

I have heard that the past is a good indication of the future..
but my own story denies that statement... I have been wealthy,
poor, homeless and middle class... so what story am I going to tell
about my many different and diverse roads, I have been on?
Whatever story I want... because it is my story and I can become
the hero, the victim or something in between...

So, when I tell a story about the strengths of liberalism
and the weakness of conservativism or the failure of the GOP/MAGA
party, it is, a story I have told about those things.. Does that make
my story honest, truthful or real? It is as real or honest or real
as I want it to be... or to say that another way, every single story
I/we tell, can be true or false or somewhere in the middle and I/we could
be the hero, the villain or the victim.. or somewhere in between....

"My car broke down the other day"

and a hundred, a thousand or a million stories can come from that line...

so, what story do you tell, about yourself or your history or our collective
history?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

let us examine some other stories we tell..

I have read many types of stories, love stories, science fiction, epic poems,
novels, plays.. the stories we refer to as "fictional" stories...
and those fictional stories have had a far greater impact on us,
than real stories... I have read philosophy for over 40 years, and not
one has reduced me to tears.. and yet, I have read two fictional
books that have reduced me to tears... First love by Ivan Turgenev
and Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson...

And how do fictional books like "War and Peace" impact us far greater
than a book, a "true" book like "Nietzsche'' by Walter Kaufmann?
I admit that Kaufmann's book has impacted me to a degree that I
can't even explain.. but it has impacted lives for over a generation
and Nietzsche will not, ever, have the impact of a book like
"War and Peace"..

which leaves us wondering how does a fictional book, which is fictional,
can impact us far greater than many books that are based on truth?

We can learn many truths, in fictional books, that can never be found
in "true" book like Nietzsche... why are big important truths found
in "fictional" books like 'War and Peace?" and not found in non-fiction books,
like Nietzsche?

We can still read plays like "Oedipus" and still learn truths about
what it means to be human and reread books like Plato's "Republic"
and learn nothing, in fact, to be bored to tears... it has nothing to
do with when a book was written but everything to do with the truths
we can learn from that book, be it non-fiction like Nietzsche or fiction/play
like "Oedipus"...

How can we tell the books if the books we read has truths
or is just a good story? What moves you.... What causes your heart
to break.. and that story is the story to save and reread, if you can...

but Kropotkin, you are wrong.. and that is just your story being told...
what other stories do you tell?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

But Kropotkin, what is the point of this OP/thread?

What value does it have? I have no idea, but the story you tell
about this OP/thread, is just another story we tell..

So, tell us, what is your story about this OP/thread?
and that will give us its value, its "truth".. its meaning...

Kropotkin

[promethean75]

"so, what story do you tell, about yourself or your history"

well let's see my old lady's grandmother was lebenese and born in Beirut, and her grandfather wuz from Nazareth; my great grandparents. from this line was produced the very famous saba family of professional photographers in Nazareth, who were my great uncles. and the old lady's grandmother's mother choked to death on a watermelon seed. 

the old man's side is irish american.

[Peter Kropotkin]

a story I have told for decades, is the story of how my mom,
lived on a farm in Wisconsin, and not too long ago, I was in the midst
of another story, when I mentioned how she had grown up on a farm,
and she said, " are you high?" I never grew up on a farm. I lived in
a city, granted a small city, but nevertheless I grew up in the city
of Burlington Wisconsin''.. Now, I have told this story of my mom living
on a farm for over 50 years, now what? Regardless of why, I have been telling
a story that is a lie for over 50 years...and so, I changed my story, my mom
lived in very small Wisconsin town when growing up...It didn't sound right to me,
but it was the truth... and after a couple of years telling that story, the true one,
I realized that it didn't matter, it really didn't matter where my mom grew up,
so I have returned the story to her birth and growing up on the farm in Wisconsin...

And you know what, it didn't matter, not at all, I could have said, New York or
France or China or the planet Mars... it was completely irrelevant to me,
whether my mom grew up on earth, Wisconsin or in outer space..
Does it really matter? It all depends on why I tell that story or hewn
to that lie. The fact is, the stories we tell, the actual truth or falsehood
of a story doesn't change the power of that story.. I could tell a complete
fabrication of my life story, and it doesn't matter.. I could engage in telling
the complete total truth of my life story and it could have less value,
less "truth" than a story that is made up...what is the value of the stories,
the lies we tell? It comes down to the truths we find... a complete
fabrication of a story may have more truth, be more honest, than a story
that is factually true in every single word.. a story I tell, that gives us
some understanding of the world, what it means to be human, has more
value than any factual true story I might tell.. story from which I can learn something,
something that is "spiritually true" and can be used to better understand my life, has more value
than anything written that is factually "true"...

And some might use that to recommend stories like the "bible" or follow the Buddha...
but that is false...the focus of religions is not about being here and now, no,
the focus of religions is mostly on being saved to get to heaven... to deny the
present and focus on an afterlife that comes much later...this focus on the tomorrow,
the afterlife, denies and devalues our current, present lives.. our current religions
neglect and negate who we are, currently are right now.. in return, we focus on tomorrow
and the afterlife... that devaluation of human beings in religions is what is wrong
with religions.. I want a religion that focuses complete and totally on us, today,
as we are right now, and as ought to become tomorrow.. not in the next lifetime,
but right now and tomorrow...no later...

So, what stories do I want to hear today? Stories that tell me how I am human,
and how do I become fully human...... for today, we are not fully human, we
are animal/human... and what is the path to becoming fully human?
that is the story I want to hear....because that story is about today
and what is possible tomorrow, not in the next life, but tomorrow...

what about those stories?

Kropotkin

[Age]

a story I have told for decades, is the story of how my mom,
lived on a farm in Wisconsin, and not too long ago, I was in the midst
of another story, when I mentioned how she had grown up on a farm,
and she said, " are you high?" I never grew up on a farm. I lived in
a city, granted a small city, but nevertheless I grew up in the city
of Burlington Wisconsin''.. Now, I have told this story of my mom living
on a farm for over 50 years, now what? Regardless of why, I have been telling
a story that is a lie for over 50 years...and so, I changed my story, my mom
lived in very small Wisconsin town when growing up...It didn't sound right to me,
but it was the truth... and after a couple of years telling that story, the true one,
I realized that it didn't matter, it really didn't matter where my mom grew up,
so I have returned the story to her birth and growing up on the farm in Wisconsin...

And you know what, it didn't matter, not at all, I could have said, New York or
France or China or the planet Mars... it was completely irrelevant to me,
whether my mom grew up on earth, Wisconsin or in outer space..
Does it really matter? It all depends on why I tell that story or hewn
to that lie. The fact is, the stories we tell, the actual truth or falsehood
of a story doesn't change the power of that story.. I could tell a complete
fabrication of my life story, and it doesn't matter.. I could engage in telling
the complete total truth of my life story and it could have less value,
less "truth" than a story that is made up...what is the value of the stories,
the lies we tell? It comes down to the truths we find... a complete
fabrication of a story may have more truth, be more honest, than a story
that is factually true in every single word.. a story I tell, that gives us
some understanding of the world, what it means to be human, has more
value than any factual true story I might tell.. story from which I can learn something,
something that is "spiritually true" and can be used to better understand my life, has more value
than anything written that is factually "true"...

And some might use that to recommend stories like the "bible" or follow the Buddha...
but that is false...the focus of religions is not about being here and now, no,
the focus of religions is mostly on being saved to get to heaven... to deny the
present and focus on an afterlife that comes much later...this focus on the tomorrow,
the afterlife, denies and devalues our current, present lives.. our current religions
neglect and negate who we are, currently are right now.. in return, we focus on tomorrow
and the afterlife... that devaluation of human beings in religions is what is wrong
with religions.. I want a religion that focuses complete and totally on us, today,
as we are right now, and as ought to become tomorrow.. not in the next lifetime,
but right now and tomorrow...no later...

If you HAD read or listened to 'the story' PROPERLY, then you would have ALREADY REALIZED that 'it', literally, is focusing completely and totally on 'you', human beings, today, as 'you' are right now, and as ought to become tomorrow, and the only mention of the 'next lifetime' is the CHANGING of this greedy and selfish way of 'life' that 'you' are living in and creating in the here and now, in the days when this is being written, INTO the NEXT and much BETTER peaceful and harmonious 'life'. The 'after-life' refers to the 'way of life' 'tomorrow, AFTER the 'one' that 'you' are living in, 'today', when this is being written.

I suggest you LOOK and READ from NEW EYES, or completely OPENLY, instead of with and from APE thinking, that is; instead of with and from Assumptions based on Past Experiences.

So, what stories do I want to hear today? Stories that tell me how I am human,
and how do I become fully human......

So, 'you' WANT to HEAR MORE LIES and DISTORTIONS, just because 'you' think that 'they' will make 'you' feel better about "yourself".

for today, we are not fully human, we
are animal/human... and what is the path to becoming fully human?

LOL Some of 'us' have MOVED OUT OF and PAST the so-called 'fully human' stage, let alone being STUCK in the animal/human level or as I call it APE-like level, and ONTO the NEXT, up and coming, stages, for 'you', animal/humans. But, at least, it is ALL UP from down at that very LOW level 'you', animal/humans are STUCK AT.

that is the story I want to hear....because that story is about today
and what is possible tomorrow, not in the next life, but tomorrow...

The QUICKER 'you' CHANGE, the QUICKER the next, and better, 'life' BECOMES, a part of 'tomorrow'.

But STAY the way 'you' ARE, in the days when this is being written, then the LONGER 'that tomorrow' will take TO-COME.

what about those stories?

Just MORE made up stories.

I found thee One and ONLY ACTUAL True Story of 'things' to be much more REWARDING, FULFILLING, and SATISFYING.

Kropotkin