Narratives



We all like narratives.

And we often put ourselves there.

Or at least the human race.

we want to see us as winners or at least as victims.

We read books and watch films with understandable narratives.

what about the narrative of violence?

Stephen Pinker has a story to tell there.

He means that we are going towards a more peaceful world and that the violence has decreased.

If we read the news and watch tv we may not believe so. But that's probably because we want to read about crime and violence, so that is what the journalists write about.

It may be that it was good for our survival to know about trouble in our surroundings in older times,  so therefore the behaviour is inherited in us. But nowadays we will know about trouble from over the whole world. 

But statics show that violence seem to decrease.

Maybe the world is going towards a better future.

But in the long run we are of course going to be diminished anyway...

So it it may be better to appreciate the small things in the daily life instead of seeking a meaning in the long run. As the popcorn I'm eating right now, the green tea Im drinking and the text I'm writing.
So much work behind the corns and the tea, not  to speak of the computer I'm writing on.

To look for a bigger meaning will be futile

A child of a friend of mine got very scared and cried when she learned that the Earth will one day will disappear.

She wanted to have a nicer story to put the Earth in.

When we meditate we focus on other things than the narratives in our heads.
And when we finish the meditation we may have some distance to our stories.

We may have wishes to be rich, famous and celebrated.
We may long for passed times when we were young and so on.

But if we get stuck in the stories we tell to ourselves we can be depressed.

Meditation can be a way, not to get rid of the stories, but to look at them with a clear mind.
And that may lead to appreciation of what we already have.



Anyway;
 Here is a discussion from IAI-tv where Pinker defends his narrative: 
(you have to log in to see the whole video)

https://iai.tv/video/the-decline-of-violence






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