Friday, June 19, 2015

The Best Story Wins

Wings of Love (1972)
Stephen Pearson


He or she or It who tells 
the best story wins.

Most people think of money as the highest human attainment. And money seduces.

With it, you win. Simple as that, or is it?

As stated in A Critique of Money, "money is among the elements that facilitate social interaction."

What else facilitates social interaction?

Let's see, now, shall we...

I don't know about you, but what facilitates social interaction is good manners. Pausing a moment from indulging in our own experience of life to acknowledge life outside ourselves. Acknowledging the other is the epitome of good manners.

The things we share are not always the things we're thinking about. Sometimes the things we share are more like this:


The TRICK to telling the best story is telling ourselves the best story


I can do better than that!
(spoken like a true storyteller)



You go back outside to play .... to get some wind blowing against you ... you take a thousand slow breaths precisely regulated to the body's expenditure. The experience vacillates between moderate to slightly intense relaxation. It's a trip, and you're riding it ... full steam ahead!

Its vistas extend for miles along riverbanks and surrounding streets, enveloping mountanesque courtyards, and its total surface area covers as far as your eyes can see.

A living monument that has witnessed centuries of the most momentous events in the history of that place; and it is the culmination that serves as a veritable encyclopedia of all the geographical and societal events and styles developed over the course of this particular time/space/location through which you are currently traveling and now contributing into being.

This space we're talking about consists of an approximately incalculable number of experiences and a myriad of other arrangements constructed into the space we occupy as we swoosh our way down the mountain ... 

The things you see before you lay claim to illustrate the existential history of the space through which you're still moving.

The scale of these dates and their corresponding movements is nearly unfathomable, but clever people everywhere will try to figure them out, after first patting themselves on the back for noticing them in the first place. It is precisely here where eternity's zipper lies. You either see it or you don't.

And what do you do if you don't see it?

That's a good question. Just pretend. Pretend you see it. Make it up. Imagine it. See it. Build it. Construct it. Paint it. If you must, plant flowers.



Leafing through what we see, we will, of course, find "essentials" such as those things with which we cannot live without. Those thoughts or experiences or sensations we simply must have to feel good. These are the characters of our story.



Victory wants to go first! 

She builds herself A Rose Cottage...

NIKE (or Nicé) was the winged goddess or spirit daimon of victory, both in battle and peaceful competition. Her four children, Nike (Victory), Zelos (Rivalry), Kratos (Strength) and Bia (Force) stand beside her along the other side of existence. In other words, along Eternity's Zipper.

Beyond her wreath or sash to crown a victor, an oinochoe and phiale (bowl and cup) for libations, a thymiaterion (incense burner), an altar, and a lyre for the celebration of victory in song. In mosaic art and coins Nike is often shown holding a palm branch as a symbol of victory.

The stories she tells herself reverberate throughout history. She is constantly reborn, carried forward generation by generation. Her presence is felt. All who come near her sense a frequency not unlike that which they seek. The slightest provocations shiver.

She is the Mona Lisa, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and the Venus de Milo. In them we recognize the hand of Raphael, Vigeé Le Brun, and any other artist that delights our aesthetic sensibilities. Be it in art or song, from every epoch and every medium little of which will ever be known beyond specialist circles; it is our imagination only that is so sweeping, so comprehensive that it has a matchless ability to provide us with a new discovery every moment of every day.

But who could survive such intensity?

There must be rest periods. Rejuvenation and relaxation. Just like gliding down our mountain, there are times when we give more effort, and times when we relax and allow for the experience to flow through us.

Every day a previously unnoticed aspect hidden in the corner of our room, a newly acquired object, a sculpture taken out of storage or restored, a work of art we ourselves bring into existence, which we see for the first time, or simply a moment that catches our eye we had not previously engaged. To live the greatest story, this is a priceless asset.

But what if you don't live the greatest story? Some people see room for improvement in their lives. The quality of the story you tell yourself now takes on new meaning. If you think there's something better out there, the El Dorado of moments ... Oz.

... you're absolutely right!

Athena (2012)
Soph Laugh


There is definitely something better out there. But where is there? The Cheshire Cat would merit our attention if we only knew how to listen to him. Flash forward past the bank-busting originals, the investment pieces bartered by hedge-fund analysts and arms dealers, secured by museums for the enlightenment of the nation.

Take the story you tell yourself, those words you hear yourself think every day, as you make your way through life. Does it make you laugh? How many gifts do you give yourself? What do you collect? What sort of stuff do you do and think about each day? Do you like everything about which you think and do? Do you ever want to do something different? Can you imagine how exhausting it would be to ask yourself these types of questions every day?

This kind of thinking will keep you busy if you're not otherwise doing something. But you can also allow yourself to get lost in the labyrinth of cultures and world styles. Go off in search of the world's treasures. See what you've never seen or had occasion to imagine.

Soak it in. Feel it. Experience it.

AMAZING! 

New input is amazing. A good story ALWAYS needs New Input. It is an imperative if you want to construe for yourself a story unmatched in comparison. The story you know your destined to tell.

All stories are destined stories. Every moment is in an of itself an eternal moment. Forever existing simply because it existed. Anything that exists or is made to exist or is imagined to exist exists the moment it is imagined into existence. And that's a lot of existence.

Nothing can be more surprising, seductive, interesting, and impressive than to directly confront the greatest ideas in their appropriate setting. Every moment, every place, every person, every thing has its greatest moment.

The greatest story is catching someone at their greatest moment.

There are many great moments. And some of these great moments are best admired outside of our own homes. The moments that adorn our walls, if you wish, can represent something only you can prove exists. The expression of self materialized.

Material artefacts of self show the world we mean business, meaning, we fully intend to experience as many moments of every day humanly possible. We want to squeeze in billions of stories, like billions of stars, absorbed by us as we expand outward toward full expression.



Whatever image we imagine before us only stimulates the appetite, to preserve a memory of a moment, and above all, to make us want to immerse ourselves in the treasure troves of the world we have to give ourselves moments from which we can tell ourselves the best story. We must craft moments and stories and mix up the order in which we apply them.

In doing so we find the best stories of our lives. If we choose to share them, we can. We can share our ultimate stories: A collection of our finest moments. Or we can keep those treasures for ourselves, closer to home. We can hang them on our walls, or whisper them in our corridors or outside in the garden among the rose bushes who only sing when politely asked to ...









































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