<div class="text-justify">

I got into an argument today at work with a couple of colleagues and was quite annoyed, because I didn't handle it well. Too often, I am argumentative and combative and after living a life where I generally am not taking the mainstream line on most everything, it tends to rub people the wrong way. But, I did apologize for the way I approach things, as I didn't intend to piss them off, just give a different view of the narrative they held. 

![sunset_02.12.1521.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/tarazkp/iIEG2R4s-sunset_02.12.15-2-1.jpg)

The conversation was actually around narratives, something I have been interested in for a long time and have done a little bit of thinking on it - but no reading. I think part of the problem that people have in this world is that they "learn" too much and build their personal narrative around it, even though it is  not connected to their reality or experience - but they onboard it nonetheless. It can be like a psychologist planting memories of childhood abuse that never happened, but once the story has breath, it comes alive and feels real.

We act on our narratives, but the stories we tell ourselves don't actually have to be based in reality at all and often aren't. Even memories of things we attended are held imperfectly in some fiction our mind has created, with the feeling as if it is as it was and we know it with certainty, as we were there. 

These days, people feel that they need to have someone to look up to in their chosen slice of identity and then feel victimized if they are not represented by a role model. The problem with this is two-fold. Firstly, we have created a world that encourages the ever finer slicing apart of identity with so much sensitivity, that there is no way to ever have a role model represented in every possible place always. Secondly is what I consider a different issue.

>Every story has an origin. 

People want a person in the world to represent them so they can have a character for their narrative, but the problem is, someone always has to be first. People throw up their hands and protest the lack of representation from people "like them" without seeing the irony of the statement, why isn't it them? Perhaps rather than demanding healthy role models, we should instead be becoming them and supporting those on the path toward. Yet, few want to put on the mantle *and be the change* and would rather be the victims of circumstance under conditions they choose not to affect.  

It frustrates me when people say that they do not want to be labelled or judged on personal traits, yet demand that they have people acknowledge and consider those specific traits as important - it isn't logical. Which is why, there is the narrative to close the gaps as the story a person tells themselves needn't be logical, it has to be functional enough to have a person believe it - true or not. We can't both make the claim that we are fine the way we are and then get upset when *someone else* doesn't accept us the way we are - that is two different stories playing in unison that are in conflict with each other. 

Narratives are very important in our lives, as we are after all, a tribe of story tellers and we have used this skill to progress and evolve further than any other species in existence. The stories we tell aren't just products of our imagination, they become our world as we start to close gaps between fantasy and fact, engineering a path from fiction to reality. 

The story of flight lived in us before the technology and the story of peace on earth is out there, but yet to be realized. The problem is, the more we fracture our stories to the point that they are no longer in touch with our individual experience of the world, the less power they have on affecting change. and this is what is happening through so many of the digital spaces now - a disconnection from each other through the hijacking and twisting of our collective stories in order to engineer polarization among us. It is a process of divide and conquer and there is no longer the need to even get physical, a few biased articles, targeted memes and a Twitter campaign is enough.

We are ultimately divisible as individuals and we can keep slicing ourselves out of a group by focusing on ever more narrow slivers of identity - but where we end up is standing alone. Not as a hero, but a hermit. 

In a world that requires collaboration of the highest order to solve the global problems we face, we seem more intent on telling ourselves that "I are okay" - *it is everyone else that has to change.*


Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]



</div>