Posted by Ir (Helen) on: 04.25.2006 /
Do you read books? Go to movies? Most people love good stories and movie makers, book publishers and sales departments capitalize on it.
Ok, now I’m going to be a little provocative…
I believe that our heads are full of stories which didn’t come from outside sources. Each time we observe something or go through an experience we create a mental story about why it happened and what it means. Then we remember the story along with the event.
Some experiences touch us in such slight ways that we barely notice writing a story about them. But when an experience is significant we‘re likely to create an epic about it.
The mental stories Christians with strong beliefs write tend to have Jesus/God as a leading character. Atheists write mental stories too but of course theirs don’t have any gods in.
People who are experiencing a time of mental illness write mental stories but their ability to do so is significantly impaired. Clinically depressed people are often at risk of committing suicide because – tragically - they tend to keep telling themselves this particular story: “Ending my life is the best course of action I can take”. People who are too ‘high’ write and tell themselves such exciting stories that they are at risk of throwing away ‘normal things’ like relationships and money with reckless abandon. By the time they realize the story wasn’t worth such sacrifices they’ve often already been made.
Some people who are not mentally ill are not very good at writing and telling themselves helpful stories. Some people write and tell themselves stories which cause them to be angry all the time. In my experience a continually angry state of mind is incredibly distracting and hence very counter-productive.
Of course, one of the stories many people tell themselves is that the stories they tell themselves are true. Is that true?
Are movies and books just ‘entertainment’ to you?
Is there any movie or book which has had a big impact on your life?
Do you agree with me that we create mental stories all the time about our lives?
If so, what sort do you create? Are they helpful? Useful? Counterproductive?
Leave a Reply
Comment by: Lisa Wellington
1 04/25/06 3:43 PM | Comment Link |COOL POST, Ir.
I’m going to give this some thought and come back.
Comment by: TXatheist
2 04/25/06 4:08 PM | Comment Link |I have changed the types of movies I like. I like drama or educational ones. I mean I still find Ferris Beuller’s day off and Terminator classics for those types of movie but Inherit the Wind is more dramatic and to my liking. I’ve also switched to talk radio for the information instead of music on the radio. One book stands above the rest, 20 questions:an introduction into philosophy really made me start to think about issues from both sides. I do create mental stories and they are fairy tales with happy endings. I do imagine winning 50 million somehow though I don’t play the lotto but I’m financially content. I think images of what I like or inspire to learn about help my drive to get there. Are these true stories? I don’t know, can’t predict the future but I try to guide my travels in a positive way.
Comment by: Lisa Wellington
3 04/25/06 5:29 PM | Comment Link |One of my favorite movies is Life is Beautiful, with Roberto Benigni.
It’s a wonderful example of paradigm shift, in this case for a child
exposed to the holocaust.
Self —talk (or, the personal story we tell ourselves) I think is vital. We tend to self-talk out loud a lot and unwittingly. Our children pick up on this. We also tend to manifest what we self-talk about. So, this is an important topic.
In the realm of mental health, I’ve not until now thought about how this
Function of self-talk could be subverted so insidiously but of course it is so.
How we would process something as complicated as faith/belief could
Be seriously compromised.
On another note, regarding movies, has anyone seen “What the Bleep do we know?” It’s a terrific film dealing with the topic of neural-networks and how we, and God, co-create our reality….
Check it out.
Comment by: NCxian
4 04/25/06 5:42 PM | Comment Link |Big Fish is a great film and it’s about story. The father and son main characters are estranged. The father tells one big tall tale about his life after another. The son never believes a word and thinks that the father has never revealed the truth about himself. The movie suggests that truth and fact are not the same thing, and that the stories we tell to ourselves and others can reveal more of who we are than the facts about us.
Ewan MacGregor at his best, too. Which is very good.
Comment by: Bob
5 04/25/06 6:58 PM | Comment Link |I love stories. Especially allegories where characters represent “larger truths”. A book I really like is The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.
I think stories connect us with parts of ourselves that we forget. I also think stories also connect us to others because we see a common thread of humanity through them.
I’m sure I tell myself stories but I’m not sure what kind they are. Probably mysteries ’cause I usually don’t know what’s going on. ;-)
I’ve started to recognize that each of us is a priceless, unique story. We love to tell our own stories but we aren’t always interested in listening to another’s. The people we are drawn to enjoy hearing our story. The people who love us tell our story back to us.
Comment by: Lisa
6 04/25/06 8:36 PM | Comment Link |Bob this is wonderful:
Thank you.
Comment by: Ir
7 04/26/06 4:40 AM | Comment Link |Thanks everyone! It’s neat to hear what movies/books have had an impact in your lives and why.
Lisa wrote:
Thanks for picking up on one of the main points I was trying to get across, Lisa!
Have any of you ever tried to improve any of your ’self-talk’ (which is a common way of referring to the mental stories we create about our lives) because they noticed it was counter-productive?
I have - I’m curious whether others have too.
Comment by: Bob
8 04/26/06 6:38 AM | Comment Link |Dr. Phil is the most prominent member of a whole school of psychology that emphasizes positive self talk.
Comment by: Peter in Pennsylvania
9 04/26/06 6:59 AM | Comment Link |I don’t think my favorite books and movies are JUST stories. Sometimes a story (that is not necessarily “true” factually) is the best way to make a point. I think that’s what Jesus knew with the parables. The movie “Big Fish” is like that, too. And another one that you should all check out is “Smoke Signals.” A WONDERFUL movie written, produced and directed by Native Americans a few years ago.
I love one scene there particularly. One character is about to tell another character a story, and asks “Do you want the truth? or lies” (don’t remember the exact wording… sorry…) and the other character says “I want BOTH!” Powerful film, rent it or buy it today!
Comment by: Lisa Wellington
10 04/26/06 9:12 AM | Comment Link |I’d forgotten about Smoke Signals. I’m going to rent it this weekend and see it for the first time.
Thanks, Peter for the reminder.
Comment by: Ir
11 04/26/06 9:30 AM | Comment Link |I agree, Peter. I was waiting for someone to say that!
Comment by: Julie Marie
12 04/26/06 1:29 PM | Comment Link |20 years ago I went and saw Sophie’s Choice and Terms of Endearment in the same week. It cured me of ever wanting to be impacted emotionally by a movie ever again :O ). I do enjoy comedy, like Oh Brother Where Art Thou, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, and “coming of age” type movies like Crossing Delancy.
I do take my books seriously :) I think back and see that growing up, my moral code was taken from the pages of the “Little House” books (oh dear, I know it sounds so corny, but it is what it is - and better that than the subjective morality in my household). So I had this pioneer spirit thing going on. As I matured I mixed in some Frankl, Friedan, and Steinam. What emerged is some sort of invincible superwoman (my husband calls her She-Ra) that wouldn’t acknowledge that anything was ever wrong.
Not a very balanced picture. I’ve been working on that. ;)
Comment by: Tom in Sacramento
13 04/26/06 1:47 PM | Comment Link |Sort of in Peter’s vein, one of my favorite stories is Lewis’ space trilogy. Great story but so many interesting ideas to think about.
Comment by: Eliza
14 04/26/06 11:01 PM | Comment Link |Hope this is OK, I’ve carried over a comment that KSG posted today in the Vineyard Church thread, that seems to fit perfectly here:
(By KSG, earlier today, on a different thread)
Comment by: Eliza
15 04/26/06 11:17 PM | Comment Link |KSG said
Definitely, in that context. My consumption of fiction and movies has been low in the last several years (husband and I both work, kid, big dog who needs walk 2x/day, yadda yadda) but I do enjoy immersing myself in a good story. I remember hearing somewhere that the author or filmmaker is most likely to capture the audience into suspended disbelief if the degree of disbelief that’ll be required is at least hinted at early, rather than sprung later as a surprise. The idea being that the audience best accepts the suspension of disbelief if there’s some modicum of internal consistency, I guess.
I’m trying to understand what you mean by this; could you elaborate? Maybe some examples? And I’ll try to re-think it with that additional info.
But I also think that the reason I’m having trouble imagining what this would be like is my strong, inborn-and-then-developed-from-childhood “skepto-meter”. It, or rather I, won’t let me suspend disbelief long or far in “real life”. It just feels wrong, uncomfortable, false, ego-dystonic, yadda yadda. Doesn’t fly. Which doesn’t mean that I don’t create mental stories, as Ir brought up. I probably do, but not very explicitly (to myself at least!).
Comment by: Ir
16 04/27/06 4:26 AM | Comment Link |Eliza, thanks for bringing that KSG quote over here.
The concept of ’suspending disbelief’ is very interesting; I think I did that all the time when I was attending church and Bible study and had doubts - although that’s not what I called it.
I thought of it as ‘turning off my internal critic’. I only did it to help me get through the service/study without distraction. By this point in my life it was on whenever I didn’t need it to be off to avoid an experience being too emotionally stressful.
My counselor talked to me one time about managing my emotions by ‘thought-stopping’. I see this as another way of referring to the same concept. He looked a bit rueful when I told him how useful a technique that was for me during church services (he’s a Christian).
Part of the point of this blog entry is to encourage people to ask themselves: have I checked the calibration of my skeptometer lately? Because those of us who use one a lot tend to rely on it very heavily. What if it’s a little off and we don’t realize?
We tend to assume that something called a skeptometer is going to be calibrated correctly, but the thing is, who calibrated it? We did. And do we have perfect calibration skills? Maybe not.
Comment by: KSG
17 04/27/06 7:37 AM | Comment Link |Thanks Eliza for applying my comments to this thread as it fits very well into this discussion.
Well said.
An element of skepticism in one’s life is healthy (so is fat BTW) but too much causes problems. Can we really afford to be sceptical about everything? Too much scepticism leads to cynicism (we’ve had that modelled here on this diablog and on the DB) and to be quite blunt, I don’t want to be a cynic (or a sceptic). I don’t think it’s healthy, I think it causes bitterness, callousness & apathy.
My mechanic “suspends disbelief” while I describe a problem with my car, my doctor “suspends disbelief” while I describe how I’ve been dizzy for the last 5 days (labyrinthitis). So, I’m suggesting that all of us suspend disbelief in our daily lives already. When someone or something tells us a story, we agree to believe that story until we can gather evidence that causes us to either corroborate or refute that story.
A good case in point is a t.v. show I loved… The X-Files… Mulder was the Xian wanting to believe that God is real, miracles happen, etc., and Scully was the Athiest who wanted to believe that God wasn’t real, miracles had scientific rational explanations, etc. I’ll stop there because I don’t think I can stretch the analogy much farthur.
Comment by: TXatheist
18 04/27/06 8:52 AM | Comment Link |ksg,
Your point is being taken to the DB.
Comment by: Karen
19 04/27/06 9:47 AM | Comment Link |There is a wonderful column in the New York Times this week that fits in nicely with this thread. It’s a great read:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/25/health/psychology/25case.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Comment by: Ir
20 04/27/06 12:58 PM | Comment Link |I see what you’re saying KSG.
But…I’m not sure your examples quite match what a materialist would have to do when hearing a story about God miraculously healing someone in a way that subverts the laws of physics as we best understand them.
I say this because why would your mechanic have a presupposition that there cannot be anything wrong with your car, that he has to suspend? I would be surprised if a mechanic had those expectations because he has evidence all the time that cars break down.
And why would a doctor have to suspend disbelief that you could be ill when you tell him about symptoms? Doctors have evidence that people get ill all the time.
Skeptics on the other hand consider they have evidence that the laws of physics always apply.
So I think it’s a little different. Do you see what I mean?
Comment by: Eliza
21 04/27/06 3:58 PM | Comment Link |Coincidentally, me the marked skeptic is a primary care physician, so I have this type of interaction all the time with patients. And I have absolutely no problem at all believing what my patients tell me when they describe symptoms, concerns, etc. In fact, I really really need that information, both factual and emotional, to do my job - which includes helping them figure out what’s going on, and how to alleviate the symptoms (and figure out how serious it is). That’s what I’m there for, and what I love about it, and that doesn’t feel at all like “suspending disbelief” to me. That’s listening. Now, if it doesn’t all hang together, or there seem to be clues that there’s something major left unsaid then I do get skeptical…and go looking for more information, sometimes from the patient and sometimes from outside sources. That might include broadening the labwork to look for unusual conditions, like a brain MRI in the case of someone with dizziness, or calling around to pharmacies to see if this person might be getting drugs from multiple physicians or something. But obviously I’m not having that kind of thought with every patient I see.
And I get totally pissed off with doctors who dismiss people’s symptoms. It’s not rare, unfortunately. But I don’t think of those docs as skeptics, just close-minded, self-centered donkeys rears.
Comment by: Eliza
22 04/27/06 4:02 PM | Comment Link |Actually, I disagree - at least, that’s not how I think of being a skeptc. The “laws” of physics have been refined over the centuries, amazingly they haven’t had one set unmoving “truth” to them but are still under investigation and refinement. Einstein for example predicted situations using general relativity which have only recently been demonstrated to hold true. And the searches for gravity waves and a unified field theory are still on (finding either would be a big deal in physics.)
I myself use skeptic to mean someone who tends to question (as in, “to investigate”, not as in, “to always disbelieve”) the basis on which claims of factuality are made, often looking for external corroborating or contradicting information.
Comment by: Ir
23 04/28/06 4:54 AM | Comment Link |Eliza - I take your point. I didn’t mean to imply that skeptics have dogmatic ‘beliefs’ about the laws of physics. I was trying to say that when they have a working hypothesis based on a lot of evidence, then asking them to temporarily throw that out because what follows is going to seemingly contradict it is a big deal and is different from asking someone not having that to ’suspend disbelief’.
I probably didn’t express myself well, because I sense we pretty much would agree on this issue if I had :)
Comment by: KSG
24 04/28/06 7:16 AM | Comment Link |What I’m saying about suspending disbelief (i believe)actually closely echos what both of you (Ir & Eliza) have been saying. Eliza, you said that when a doctor listens to a patient describe their symptoms that they are not “suspending disbelief”, but are just listening. What I am saying is that when someone “suspends disbelief” they are practising the art of good listening. They are listening and accepting as possible what the speaker is saying without prejudging either the person or what they say. After the speaker is finished, the listener then has to process that information and “file it somewhere”. (either in file 13 or in their use-it-everyday file or the another-useless-piece-of-info-that-I-can’t-seem-to-forget file, etc)
What I am suggesting (especially to sceptics and cynics) is instead of simply discarding a file, that we create a file for it, a I’m-not-sure-how-to-interpret-this file (an X-file as it were). You don’t have to except the story you have been given, but you don’t have to deny it either, simply acknowledge it and put it on the shelf for a later date.
Comment by: Eliza
25 04/28/06 7:18 AM | Comment Link |Ir, I like this description. Thanks! I’ve been wondering lately if ’skeptic’ might mean ‘paranoid cynic’ to some people, and that’s definitely not how I see it (for myself at least). So I’ve been feeling sensitive about how people describe ’skeptics’ here & I jumped on you for no reason - so sorry!
Comment by: KSG
26 04/28/06 7:24 AM | Comment Link |TXatheist, So sorry but I haven’t had time to go check out the DB (hope to later but no promises).
Comment by: Ir
27 04/28/06 9:43 AM | Comment Link |No problem Eliza - I would say you appropriately addressed some unclear wording of mine!