I’m in the process of beginning to project externally an existence which has, up until now, been marked by an internal life not particularly well integrated with the outside world. That’s the mark of the dreamer without the will to do. As I’ve been growing outward, I’ve become more interested in the role of stories.

I once participated in an experiment in college, in which I was asked to keep track of every time I told a story to someone for one week. I thought at first that I wouldn’t have much to report — I didn’t think of myself as a storyteller, and I’m not the kind of person that remembers jokes. But I found, to my astonishment, that I told stories all the time. Not huge, dramatic stories, but small stories like, “Hey, guess what happened today …”

As I immersed myself in Toltec philosophy, I became acquainted with the ideas of “personal history” and the internal dialogue, and realized that there are invisible threads of story interwoven throughout my very identity. Personality characteristics, e.g. shyness, can be related to things that happened in the past, e.g. being made fun of in elementary school. Embedded within the personality matrix are stories that I tell myself on a subconscious level.

(An interesting aside: This also relates to a thesis in Michael Bader’s book Arousal, in which he suggests that instances of sexual attraction like “love at first sight” are actually sexual fantasies compressed into the moment, and that sexual preferences are those fantasies embedded in the personality’s view of the world.)

Thus, all stories are the outward shells of the belief systems that uphold our senses of self. As such they can provide secure containment and structure for the growth of the belief system that is the foundation of one’s outer ego. But they can also impede growth and stifle development.

Growth, then, can encompass the conscious use of stories for self-transformation — the deliberate manipulation or transformation of your inner stories to best express the inner self. Growth involves discarding obsolete stories — “I’m shy because people make fun of me” — and creating or engaging stories that are more useful.

There’s one aspect of stories I’d like to address that strongly blocks the conscious use of stories for growth, though. I’m talking about escapism.

Tim Boucher, in his website on “story-systems”, writes:

Science fiction has always been one of my favorite genres, no matter how many times people try to call it “escapist.” Escapism is generally seen in our culture as a quasi-dangerous flight away from reality into some obscure intangible realm of fantasy. But rather than acting as an escape from reality, stories help us strengthen ourselves in the face of new situations and possibilities.

This is an elaboration on a theme in fantasy author David Farland’s essay on why people read fiction:

… The situations that are intolerable to you in real life are situations that you crave in fiction.

For example, only a madman would want to leave his home, his family, and his friends, get stalked by the nine Dark Riders, take a knife blade to the chest, battle orcs in the mines of Moria, nearly starve to death on the road, and confront Sauron in Mordor.

All of those things would be intolerable in real life. But we crave them in fiction. Here’s why:

Your subconscious mind does not completely recognize the difference between your real experiences and those that occur only in the imagination.

So, when you become Frodo Baggins walking the road to the Crack of Doom, chased by dark riders, the subconscious mind responds to some degree as if it were really happening. When you are Robin Hood, grieving for your dead father, your mind responds as if it were really happening to you.

Indeed, the more completely you become immersed in the fiction, the more totally your body will respond.

… When the story ends, and Frodo is safely back in his Hobbit hole reading from his book, your stress is released. You sit back in your chair and sigh, and say, “Wow, what a relief! I feel so much better!”

You’ve just performed an emotional exercise, and because of it, you will be better able to handle the little stresses in your day-to-day life. The little problems at the office seem to diminish in intensity, minor worries, and even the major catastrophes, aren’t so intimidating.

It’s necessary to understand that all stories carry meaning, “fictional” no less than “real.” However, it’s the use of stories in an escapist fashion that is harmful. The escapist use involves a numbing and avoiding of the real self. Just as any activity — say, eating — can be spiritually powerful if done mindfully, it can be just as powerful in a negative way when done to escape or avoid the self.

Fiction for me has been addictive and traumatic. When I immerse myself in a fantastic world, I can forget myself and all of my troubles. But used in this way, the story actually does the opposite of “strengthening ourselves in the face of new situations and possibilities.” It allows the mind to roam free from the self, but only temporarily; in truth it reinforces tolerance of the stress of the present circumstances, without directly addressing or transforming the underlying issues. It serves as a force to maintain the status quo.

We live in an addictive culture. Entertainment is a huge industry, with many branches, from technology to theme parks. Celebrities are given the status of gods. These fetishizations are ways for people to avoid issues, to project qualities into the external world rather than face themselves and their needs and desires.

Stories in themselves are not inherently harmful; but if we don’t become conscious of the way stories affect us, and learn to use them deliberately, then we become open to manipulation by others. That’s exactly what advertisers do: create a need for a product based on the stories people tell themselves, to induce people to buy. That’s what politicians do: manipulate the stories people perceive in order to control the masses. On every level, stories are used to exploit because of this lack of awareness of the meaning of stories. The massive entertainment industry and addiction to escapism is but one symptom.

I don’t have any answers yet. Reading and watching movies remain escapist addictions that I’m not quite able to give up yet. But this awareness is a beginning, of sorts.