About Fable
The Triumph of Fables1
We want to thrive, to have a persistent sense of well-being, to be resilient to our transient crises. An essential step towards this desire is to cultivate the belief we live that way.
Belief comes from ability. Consciousness2 provides three gifts - perspective, ownership and agency - gifts which make us incredibly able. From consciousness comes FABLEs - Fictional Autobiography aBout Life Experiences, stories by their nature and ours, we know too well and doubt too little.
Our beliefs shape our fables and our fables change our beliefs. This process is largely automatic unless we develop perspective, claim ownership and take charge, unless we are conscious of our fables. Explained another way, one robust avenue to better well-being is to objectify these stories. Can we see how fables affect us, see ourselves outside our fables, see these stories as useful fiction rather than truthful documentaries? Can we recognize they exist in our memory, formed from the stew of subjective experience, making them uniquely ours? Don’t we already write, rewrite, edit and significantly change them?
“Fable” is not some mystical concept. It is well grounded in the details and conjectures of modern neuroscience. In fact, both “Fable” and modern neuroscience undermine many new-agey, mystical prescriptions for how to be resilient and cultivate a sense of well-being. The brain is the way it is because it got that way.3 To know ‘the way it is’ is grounding and freeing. Brain activity explains a lot, mystical aspirations rather little. As with fables, there is much value in objectifying the brain.
With stories, the ending matters. Fables comprise our own providence. Shelter, care and guidance for our selves exists nowhere else but within these archetypal morality plays. Accept that you are the author. Reveal the deep, soul-satisfying sensation of triumph found in even your darkest stories.
If you have the capacity for triumph, you have already done so. After all, explanation is offered before it is sought.
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I love the sound of the word ‘confabulate.’ I love its meaning. I love the way it implicates me as a habitual fable maker. I chose Fable as the title for my work with malice aforethought and with the feeling of impish glee. ↩
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Damasio, A. R. (2000). The Feeling of What Happens: Body, Emotion and the Making of Consciousness: p 145-149. I am greatly indebted to Antonio Damasio, a highly acclaimed, oft sited, neuroscientist, for any sensible thought I might have on the topic. It would not be unreasonable if I sited him at the end of every sentence about consciousness. ↩
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More accurately, the brain is the way it is because the body got that way. Mental experience is the consequence of body events, so says modern neuroscience. ↩
3 Comments
Reader Comments (3)
Have a problem w/ Goleman's premise tht some things are fixed-- "rigid" and therefore unchangeable. If quantum physics is real- and it is- then NOTHING is fixed. Matter isn't real- we use 4% of our DNA...nothing is permanent. How would ANYTHING be rigid in nature? it wouldnt survive- that goes against the very first law of nature... adapt. Goleman always writes (as we all do) from his current level of understanding. He has discovered much since his first thoughts on emotional intelligence- and will continue to, but he is in process. I wouldn't take anything he says as the final word. I am rigid about my belief that nothing is rigid : )
Thanks for the comment.
My comment here might be too blunt because there is a lot of subtlety to the study of evolutionary biology, physics and emotions. And because bluntness is also rude.
Nature, our more specifically Darwin's Theory of Evolution, says we adapt to our niche, a process that occurs over centuries. Nature hard-wires adaptations, makes them innate, encodes them in our genes because if each person had to recreate those adaptations we would have all perished.
This issue of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principal applies to the studies of atoms on an atomic level, and not to the studies of larger molecules. It's a matter of perspective.
When you strike a table, from you hand's perspective, the table is real and the blow hurts. To be excessively blunt, your argument is specious in this respect.
From the perspective of your body, your personality and so on, your genes are very, very real. To deny so it to deny the power of nature.
Neither nature, nor your genes care what you, me or Goleman may think. Unfortunately, their perspective matters far more than whatever we may dream up.
Cole, I love the originality of Fables. When I first visited the site, I remember being intrigued by the title. I think it's partly because when I was little, my father would read this children's book of fables to me. They were so simple, and mystical, and bittersweet, that I never got tired of them. They must have imprinted me in some way.
I like the three gains of consciousness that you mention, so very important to realize. And I like the way you describe the "more blunt" perspective of body, personality, and so on in the above comment.
I agree that Fables and modern neuroscience undermine many new-agey, mystical prescriptions, but it can't be said that they undermine them all. It's that gap between the seemingly antagonistic perspectives that's really exciting. That we are only beginning to comprehend, as our science accelerates.
I really dig this site, and I hope you keep writing! You're style is refreshing and your footnotes are fun. :)