You already know our world runs through narratives. They form the foundations of what we perceive. And before, I warned you not to let those narratives blind you from understanding the world in its reality.
While we should be aware of these dangers, there is something stories offer that we should never take for granted. They become heuristical deconstructions of the world we live in. And they offer approximate solutions to the challenges we face.
Without them, we face each situation anew, as if we need to relearn everything each time. Worse, we can fall into an analysis paralysis, where we are unable to take action because of the overwhelming facts we want to collect.
But stories are simpler. We can learn from them in the same way as a real situation. And they draw connections between disparate events in unique ways. Stories can sometimes even offer us more insight into the world than the world itself.
So how do stories offer us these truths? And how can we use them properly to learn from them?
Randomly Similar
I used to love watching the Power Rangers as a little kid. So much so, that I can tell you how nearly every episode goes.
Don’t believe me? Here’s the gist: There’s about 10 minutes of some interesting human drama between the power rangers with 2 minutes of the main villain finding and sending a bad guy to cause some destruction for him. Then that bad guy is wrecking some havoc on the city whereby the power rangers show up. They do some fighting and defeat the bad guy. But the main villain has some magic power to transform the villain into a giant version of themselves. Then the power rangers call their mech suits to fight him, find themselves pressured, and then make a bigger mech suit out of all of them to defeat the big villain.
Once you’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all. Sorry if I ruined the show. But maybe I just saved you some time. If the producers are going to rehash the same thing over and over again, why watch it?
But the tricky question arises when I ask you, why do you read any standard book of literature?
Joseph Campbell wrote the seminal book, A Hero With A Thousand Faces. In it, he deconstructs the hero myth that’s been told for hundreds of years. The same journey taken with our main characters from The Lion King to The Matrix.
Once you’ve read one book, you’ve read them all.
But it’s not obvious. It took hundreds of years before someone caught on. And it’ll take hundreds more for someone to catch the next thing. And it’s because it’s a lot harder to catch than a power rangers episode. Because it’s not so obvious what’s causing this.
Stochastic Self-Similarity is an idea that the universe, in its randomly generated process, actually tends to follow similar patterns of behavior. As such, these processes tend to repeat themselves in history.
It’s a model of the universe that tells us that even with all its differences, we can find commonalities in situations. That’s what it means to discover the hero’s journey. It’s the truth across human experience that literature tries to resolve. It’s the principles we create to handle situations. The question is, can we find the connections needed to think of our world as less random?
Deja Vu
It’s easy to miss the patters in our world. After all, who’s thinking of making the connection between the Matrix and The Lion King? Yet it’s those connections that allow us to face new challenges as if we are experienced for them, even when we aren’t
When Ray Dalio, the CEO of Bridgewater which is the most successful investment firm in history, was asked how he’s able to see the right trades to make, he simply says “I just look at history and see what’s happening again”.
In fact, he often describes situations in his life as “Another one of those.”
It’s easy to prescribe a uniqueness to our life situation. Looking at the granular details makes us think, “This time is different. This time there’s more to consider.”
But the truth is, it’s likely not that different. It’s extremely likely that other people, and even yourself, have faced extremely similar situations before. And the way to understand what to do when you’re in it again is simple: jot down the principles that you used to make your decision in the first place.
Those principles are timeless. (In fact, Ray Dalio made an entire book on just that: Principles). They’re the ones you use when you’re realize your life is repeating the same story again. It’s recognizing the hero’s journey you’re on. It’s deciding between two divergent life decisions. And it’s the power of recognizing those self-similarities that pop in your life, and being able to deal with them of your own accord.
Learn to recognize the stories dictating your life. Then define the principles for how you deal with those stories. Because those are what allow you to face the challenges ahead as if they’re nothing new. Just as if history is repeating itself.
