It may not be time for the Academy Awards, but every weekend new movies are released with the hopes that they may be contenders come Oscar time. A good story draws you in, it might make your heart beat faster, wax nostalgic, or feel sad. It can stick with you hours or days after you leave a theater and even have an influence on your life.
To the ever-present selection of the 3 strings of five words, every story mixes in some or all of the following sting of five words to sequence the subject matter: first, before, then, next, after. This sequencing produces the illusion of cause and effect looping around on itself as every "after" becomes a "before" for the implicit memory to build upon.
The mind or "I" is chock full of stories it wants you to see. All day, everyday it runs stories for you mixing past experience with present perceptions to establish logical conclusions and produce future projections.
By using the five story sequence words, the implicit-I is constantly editing and recalculating its story sequences non-stop, offering one possibility after another (or the same one over again) until and as it gets noticed. This is how a "fabulous opportunity" can become a "big problem" then transform into the "best choice", or end up having little or no effect.
When we are unaware this process is running (and it is running 100% of the time) we forget these stories are symbols, and take them personally. Just as when an actor assumes a role in a play he or she is limited to that character's story, so we might feel stuck, and can only react to the story-line when we identify as a character in the implicit I's stories. When we acknowledge the story-telling process without taking it personally, we can observe and are free to choose to respond or not without regard for a script, appreciating the story for what it is without being subject to it.
Try this: Next time you see your blue bunny, ask "what's at the box office?" With the detachment of someone checking the movie listings you can notice the cast, storyline, run time, if there is explicit material, and whether it's a thriller, action-adventure, drama, or comedy. Regular blue bunny box office reviews help us see all the choices we have and recognize those big-ticket items that are released like ht new block-busters even though they are just cheap remakes of b-rated science fiction.
The goal of lucid change is not to change the stories but the identification of self with them. Therein lies the transition to a guaranteed unconditional happy ending you can watch again and again.
Be lucid!
photo: popculturegeek via creative commons
