2: Narrative & Identity

Life Narratives and Identity: An Introspective Activity for the Social Sciences

An Existential Critical Thinking Exercise on Self-Care, Self-Knowledge, Self-Exploration and Self-Actualization

What stories are you weaving for yourself? What stories have others sold you?  What is real? How rich are the stories you live in? How closely tied to objectivity are they? What Ideas do you claim to be true? Who created them, and how were they constructed? These are the questions of perception and reality. How do we begin to know the self without some contemplation of these existential questions?

Consider for a moment, that we are a process; we take a snapshot in the moment of an ongoing process that is life.

Concepts to Keep in Mind: Intelligence, personality, talents, limitations, lifestyle, sovereignty, health, belief, self-esteem, passions, choices, responsibilities, lifespan, biology, stress, culture, and medicine.

Response Question 1:

Considering that the stories; the Narratives that we create about our past experiences (which guide our interpretations of the present, and lead us down a particular path) are so profoundly important to our understanding of reality, and of ourselves, I urge you to take a moment to reflect on this idea. Living in a narrative that is too small or too inflexible can be the source of great illness and suffering, and may be deeply ingrained psychologically and culturally.

Please write a brief explanation of your overall worldview as it is now…

Some Brainstorming:

• It isn’t you; it is in fact, quite a difficult question to wrestle with.
• Break it apart into smaller, more manageable pieces…

What is a worldview?

• What are the components of your worldview?
• What kind of approach to life does it entail?

Worldview: Examples

• A person’s worldview is the overall perspective from which she views and interprets the world.
• It can also typically include explanatory beliefs about life and the universe held by a group.

A person’s or a group’s worldview encompasses values, goals, concepts of the future, definitions of truth, etc. Naturally, you can see how differing world views have caused much conflict historically.

 

• “For example, the Nazi worldview caused them to believe they were acting in the name of a higher ideal and in accordance with their world theory. They believed the Germans were the “Master Race” and because of this, it was their duty to eliminate any threats to that race, which in their twisted logic, included the Jews, handicapped, homosexuals, etc. Perceived by the rest of the world that did not share this world view, their acts were considered barbarism and evil and a violation of human rights.”

• “Radical Islam’s worldview is that the world’s problems are caused by secularism. They believe a solution is to establish Sharia law, and that anyone that interferes with their goals is evil. Therefore, they can justify holy war to eliminate threats to these goals (this is an oversimplification and there is much debate about this). Note that “radical” Islam is a huge departure from Islam.”

• “In the Christian worldview, everything is seen through the eyes of faith. Christians believe that the earth is not their home, but they are on earth for a purpose, and that purpose is to serve the God that sacrificed himself for them so that they can have eternal life. They believe that God made humans stewards of the earth, so Christians have the obligation to take care of the earth.

 

Note: When outlining and explaining your worldview, try to relate your statements to big questions and concepts that you come across in your studies, or consider how they create a position for your explanatory style in how you discuss big, existential questions or relate to major debates within American Culture.  

Response Question 2: Discuss at least one factor that you want to take out or add to your narrative; and why, thinking specifically about how certain aspects of your unique narrative could be promoting or reducing your optimal performance, growth, happiness and overall wellbeing.

Remember: Your worldview IS a story! Just like a novel or a movie, your selection is the story…

• What do the aspects of the story; your choices for example, tell you about your needs?
• Why do you feel the need to believe what you do; what convinced you and when?
• Why (whatever it may be) needs to be added or taken out of the story?

Remember: All aspects of a person’s life narrative either:

• Serve them!
• Or hold them back from their development and understanding of themselves.
• It is normal to feel some cognitive dissonance within examining one’s beliefs…
• The key is to remember that ideas are flexible, and sometimes beliefs are not…

Response Question 3: Rewrite your Life Narrative with the new additions and/or subtractions. Treat this like a Narrative Map of your Future! Include your ambitions, beliefs, outlooks, motivations, relationships, health; anything you feel is important!

In your Response, Consider this:

Choice is an inherent part of human existence; human experience, however little we may have. You can make any narrative your reality because you were given the sentient gift of belief and delusion, to make real whatever is believed. Your mind and body will make it real.  You practice the suspension of disbelief every time you watch television or go to the movies. Why not at least consider an optimal vision for your own experience?  

The question really becomes, is the story you’ve been living in big enough, expansive enough, adaptive enough for you to fully thrive? Probably not, since the majority of the world it seems, gravitates toward narratives that are narrow, juvenile and dogmatic, and great effort is clearly put forth in the world at large, to push limitivistic primitivism onto all that will accept it. This type of behavior requires perpetually fleeing from the real work of life, which is to remain open, dilated, and flexible and build a narrative that is fully alive and comprehensive in nature. This is actually based in neuroscience and biology.

The problem is that the status-quo accepting behavior seen in the populations of the developed world exemplify culture that doesn’t know how to, or has no real impetus for, being wrapped in awe at the spectacular and magically mysterious and beautiful cosmos we wade through in every moment. Trust me when I say that there is far more mystery in the world around you than you have been led to believe, and also consider that what we do know now, purely through scientific rigor and revolution, is often lost on the general population. This results in people believing in things that do not exist, experiencing cognitive distortions, logic failure, and having fundamentally incorrect perceptions. Ignoring what is true, and abiding in ignorance by choice is devastating both personally and culturally. Our complex dependency on technology, and our cultural disconnect with its production, which illustrates scientific illiteracy and anti-intellectualism is a perfect example of this.

It’s about awe and freshness of appreciation, happiness, community and intimacy; within these things, we come in contact with our core selves, and our identity and connection to life is enhanced. For all intents and purposes, the small bird outside of your window is equally stunning and miraculous as the mythological creatures of ancient lore and imagination that pervade our mythologies, movies, games and novels. Truth is, maybe we will never have an encounter or personal experience of a mythological creature, a god, a dragon, or a unicorn, but the hummingbird is right there, a creature that floats through the air as though it weighs nothing, moves like a machine so fast it is hard to see it, is from a land before humanity as we know it, a time of giant creatures and extinction events, and lives a patently spiritual existence of struggle and learning not so different from our own. How could one be sanely bored?

You see, it is the caving into the delusion that this life and this world is mundane that writes an incorrect narrative where birds are just things, of no interest, when in fact, they are the miracle of life and the cosmos sitting right outside your window; anything might be an example of this. It is this narrative process that determines whether a human being can come close to achieving right perception. The intricacies of any observable thing around you is always present. To live within a narrative that leads to the incorrect perception state which we call boredom, is no narrative to live in at all. Be creative as you explore this thought experiment.

Response Question 4: Respond In Depth to at least two of these Major Social Science Themes, and make specific reference to how they relate to your Worldview and Life Narrative. Be Specific about Philosophies, Principles and Values.  

Choice Theory: Your life is the way it is because of your choices. Yes, there are environmental factors acting upon you, but you do not have to accept things as they are. Yes, the world is setup up and engineered down to the cultural level by our predecessors, but this doesn’t mean that each successive generation doesn’t look out at the way the world is, and decide they have a different vision, and must act to shift everything from infrastructure, to norms and taboos. You are capable of designing a lifestyle and an experience that is far different than the one you might be experiencing now. This will take incredible courage, sacrifice, and is rarely easy to accomplish, because we are social creatures. Taking ahold of the reigns of our own narratives, our story for what we want our life to be, often requires standing up against the people in your life now who want to control, manipulate, keep the same, or shape you into what they want you to be and what makes them comfortable. In this process, one must be careful of predicting the future; create a plan for your future that is flexible and isn’t dystopian. This is scary to some because it requires taking responsibility! People engage in self-victimization to avoid accepting the responsibilities they have created for themselves. Compulsive, uneducated decisions are not the fault of anyone but the individual that commits them. Choosing what commitments to make is essential for healthy living and a strong sense of self-esteem, which helps us gain a healthy sense of accomplishment. This is an issue of action versus inaction.

Sensation and Perception: Understanding Top-Down Processing vs Bottoms-Up Processing is essential to enhancing the freshness of appreciation of little things as well as new and diverse experiences, which are a biological necessity for achieving natural positive growth. The tendency has always been to overestimate what we know. We are only experiencing a limited sliver of reality through the senses, which can lead to an overestimation of accuracy in reality testing. Perception is at the root of many psychosomatic illnesses and illusory stressors.

Evidence Seeking Behavior and Subjectivity vs Objectivity: The Scientific Method; learn it; apply it; trust it; understand its value as a tool. Psychology, Education, and Learning, are scientific endeavors, where opinion and subjective thinking are useful for developing hypotheses and for creative extrapolation, but are not the primary mode of thinking. Instead, I urge you to think critically, question everything, sharpen your out of the box thinking and put aside your personal opinions. Stay open-minded. In one sense you could even say that taking oneself out of the equation altogether when possible would be a good practice. This is sometimes referred to as big-picture anthropological thinking. These behaviors are essential to becoming a sound psychological thinker, and even if a student only wishes to experiment with psychological thinking and is unsure whether it is something to pursue further, it is still an invaluable investigation. The key to most psychological thinking is logic, reason, and arguments which use verifiable evidence to support claims in a forensic way. The quintessential question which is relevant to so many social science investigations, is the Nature and Nurture Debate. Phenomena of the human experience is often a unique enigma that manifests within a complex matrix of genetic, biological conditions, and experience, environment, and adaptive behavior.   

The Biology of Belief: The rule of growth in the human being, which is a dynamic equilibrium, is homeostasis and interconnectedness. The reason that Holistic thinking around human wellness is so prevalent, is because it is an inclusive philosophy and methodology. It does not try to compartmentalize aspects of the human vessel or human experience, and faces the human phenomena in its entirety and complexity; mind, body, and spirit. What numerous health psychologists and researchers have discovered in recent decades through an examination of the placebo effect and other phenomena, is that belief has an incredibly strong effect on our biology. What the mind believes completely, the body tries to make real. Psychosomatic disorders are a perfect example of this. The issues of the mind, are anchored in the body and may manifest as physiological problems with a psychological causality. The emotional wound may anchor stress or pain in particular parts of the body, which will remain there until the trauma is processed. The design of the nervous system, energy systems, and sensory systems of the body, in coordination with consciousness, make this possible, although I would caution that this process is not fully understood yet.       

Beliefs versus Ideas: The infamous comedian Chris Rock, in all of his great wisdom once said, “I don’t have beliefs; I have ideas; Ideas are flexible, beliefs are not!” Each of us, whether living a secular, or humanist, or religious lifestyle, likely have some basic beliefs, values and principles, and it is the hallmark of a civilized culture to be able to live together and tolerate these differences, which we see from observing the world, is not always easy. Confirmation bias it seems, is far too invasive a problem in modern societies. As a student interested in psychology and other human phenomena, one should discover and investigate equanimity. It is useful to try to practice being equanimous, in the sense that strongly held beliefs can sometimes cloud our ability to take in new information; challenging information might cause some cognitive dissonance. It is really a question of whether you want to become a scientifically minded person that is interested in evidence and logic, or not. Also, because of the complexity that is psychology as a science, it may be useful to check your beliefs at the door, even if only as a practice of neutrality. This may seem scary in some ways, but it is a very real necessity when treating others as a helping professional to not bring yourself into the equation too much, which risks projecting onto clients, transference concerns, or cultural biases that are tied to your belief system. Working as a helping professional requires neutrality and the purpose of therapy is not to convince or change the client to your vision, but to accept them as they are and help them achieve what they want and what is best for them regardless of their belief system or whether it’s compatible with your own. What ability do you have to cultivate a big-picture awareness of what is happening? Part of this ability is to cultivate and practice an anthropological or sociological lens, to image oneself as an observer. This is a detached, minimalist analysis of what is being witnessed in a simple way eliminating as much bias and subjectivity as possible. Imagine if you can, being in an invisible spaceship above earth looking down. What do you see? Equanimity is similar to neutrality, which is an essential starting point from which to develop a belief system. Can you be neutral in observing any particular phenomena? Can you be equanimous in yourself, to witness yourself?  If adopting or subscribing to a particular belief system, it is important to clarify your rationale. Is it for your social needs, or your intellectual needs? I tend to ask people out of curiosity; what convinced you? Identify it, identify that moment, and identify that particular argument or piece of evidence. Consider validity, the source; its reliability. Were you ever in a neutral position to start with?    

Language Defining Realities: Make no mistake, we are living in the age of the critical-overthink. It is the modern, analytical, verbalizing mind that many people spend a significant amount of time in. When we talk about states of being, states of consciousness, the most occupied is the one where there is talking, internal dialogue, sounds, music, questions, all streaming through the head; and this tendency for the mind to behave erratically, jumping to and from concepts, never resting or becoming serene and silent, (which is now seen as an experiential art form) is the predominant human experience. Below that, meditation teachers are always reminding and sometimes trying to prove to others that below that verbal mind, is an experiential state, of nonverbal, intuitive, emotional instinct that is fully in touch with the totality of the mind and environment. Once this state is experienced first-hand, one realizes just how culturally specific and limited one’s own lexicon, language use, and stylistic expressions really are. Language, if the primary mode of thinking in an individual, becomes a cage of sorts that one accepts willingly from a very early age, as a tool for communication, because communication is empowering. This is the real glass ceiling. The ideas and expressions possible in one language are not the same in another language. You might ask a French speaking individual how to say something in French that you say in English; it should not be surprising that their response is that such an expression doesn’t even exist. Language is stylistic in nature and highly cultural. It is also not the only type of thinking one can engage in, just the most widely propagated in the world today. I often have found that people are deathly afraid of silence, their own company, and stillness. Ironically, these states are more primary to being human than the over-thinking verbal mind that is dominant today, but it all centers on the function of language. Use language in new and complex ways, with regular additions and retirements.             

Homogenization versus Diversification: In many things that social scientists study, whether from the vantage point of stress psychology, human growth, or cultural phenomena, there are often clear trends of diversification and homogenization. Consider which cultural conditions or psychological and behavioral activities might contribute to hegemony, or exotification. Religious culture for example, is often an intentional social movement towards cultural homogenization, while free market economy might be a factor that creates marketplace diversity. Productivity, efficiency, work; these things seem to be the obsessions of many people in modern societies, even to the detriment of the overarching culture and to the detriment of an individual’s health and life satisfaction. Life has no purpose other than the ones we choose to apply.

Garden Brain vs Machine Brain: Socially focused Individualistic Western culture is fundamentally different from collectivistic, village oriented, Ubuntu style cultures. The philosophies within are fundamentally different. It is an important cross-cultural competency to be able to see beyond one’s own ethnocentrism or cultural norms and taboos, which do not fundamentally correlate to ethics or morality. Relativism is the centerpiece of cultural differentiation. How do you think about others and your relationship to them interpersonally and through your unique intrapersonal insights?