Self as the Thing Wandering Through Itself Looking for Itself: A "Story" About Itself

story…

Prologue:

I am on a journey, a quest, for this Center that I am – unbeknownst to me. And the whole place, the fantastic creatures, the limitless diverse lands, and threatened relations, is all me as well. A psychological terrain, Th’Isterrain is, but bigger than consciousness. It is a ‘direct’ pointing at experience from within itself. And so a world exists with the smallest occupant inside.

What drives them, their relation, is the loss – or soon death – of Center.

Ch. 1

Where has it gone or where is its cure? That which we do not know is that which needs explained as the cause of the mysterious effects in Th’Isterrain. All we know, the council of elders concludes, is that her effect is missing and that it may have been gone for some time now. For the yearly renewal or ceremony or festival did not have her center-ly touch.

There is great worry throughout many lands. For even when displeased the Center has never not given her effect. Something must be done: even the smallest person can change the course of the ‘world’. Someone must be chosen, so the counsel had banded, though they knew not what to do an effort had begun to address the great mystery of Centers loss. Though the quest large, to not lose its track was key in this land. For losing focus in distraction was ever peril in Th’Isterrain. To seek the answers to the questions they did not know, the counsel banded.

Thus begins the appointment of the Journey. The need was set, the costs known but what of the journeyer? Who to give such a task to? The great gathering of the elder leaders of Th’Isterrain had formed and opinion and tried challenges. But soon time was short.

Their need great they sent out a bubble. To whom it floated and upon whom it popped would bequeath them their hero. The bubble floated up and away, way up and out of sight. None heard of it for days. Word was sent out to many lands. But hope was lost – their token vanished.

Desperate with time they sought another. Until one day the bubble was returned unharmed, by a boy of purple skin. As he tried to pass the bubble back it burst. From this all knew – save the boy who thought he’d broken something.

After all the time and care it took to get it here to them this magical thing he’d found burst he felt no better upon being told the story. The token gone, the dire circumstance conveyed, the appointment of the journey was made. And the boy wondered where he would start.

One thing was thought, that the boy may be right, when he heeded no wisdom-ly advice and immediately set out on his own (others, of course, disagreed). Knowing no one knew a real thing about what to do the boy felt no advice, or even his own advice, would be as good a place to start as any. Actually, the boy had more faith in no advice at all as he was scared his own ideas would lead him astray. Yet felt that he couldn’t quite attain to that state.

Already he started to feel lost and almost turned back (perhaps someone…) when he realized he did not know what he would gain by doing so. He stopped and looked in every direction about him. None seemed better than the others. Everything seemed like nagging uniformed advice on where to go.

He sat down, head in hands, frustrated tears welled at his eyes. He was no better off than when he’d started. And that’s when it happened. A gust of wind blew the tiniest feather into his lap. And he figured he’d start with the bird that went with that feather.

But now where to go? He went up wind, hoping to find an owner to this feather. But soon the wind died and he wondered if it was the owner of the feather which was really important at all…

He found, upon examination, that the feather was rather un-characteristic. Smallish and white with a thick quill, un-characteristic, save for two tiny words he noticed appear on its quill upon closer examination. The words were – ‘write this’ – written in golden script lettering, almost unnoticeable until concentrated upon.

He wrote the word ‘this’ in the sand. Nothing happened. What he had to do he had no idea. He kicked himself for running off on the first bright ideas he’d had, again he sat – perhaps it wasn’t the feather or the owner at all, perhaps it was where the feather had come to him that was important. But he’d lost all reckoning about where, exactly, that was. Likewise, he’d found himself in a part of Th’Isterrain he did not know. Confused and alone and not knowing where he was at or where he was going he found himself back where he’d started: head in hands emotions tearing at his inner world. Why, why him, why now, why his journey, why this quest?

Then somewhere on the wind, or perhaps just in his racked and confused mind, there came this: Searching on the outside for what is only within. His first response was that’s stupid or crazy. Or worse, he thought more confused than I already am. How can the Center of Th’Isterrain be IN ME?!?!? he thought. I’m nobody, I’m nothing. It was happenstance that the bubble even came to me

But somehow the sense made itself clear, the Center of Th’Isterrain was not in him alone. He knew this. He knew this. Somehow he’d known all along. His village had a saying: and on what authority do you know that? meaning where did you seek your ground but in your own sense of it.

He’d also known because skipping the advice at the very beginning. He remembered right off his chief-father’s saying, You seek advice where you want it – meaning you already knew what you’d hear.

He believed these teachings and was sure they fit somehow he’d have to deal with his own center to help the (‘larger’) Center of Th’Isterrain…(This she’d know). It made him happy to think he might have made some progress. But this was just it. The Center had no on what authority do you ground that. No one believed in Th’Isterrain or its Center anymore. And he didn’t even believe in himself (common problems).

Th’Isterrain was just some place – like its Center – and so, too, he just some boy. There was no ground to the ground they all shared and walked upon. Yet this was just it, they were getting their ground, their authority, from somewhere. But saying they weren’t getting it from her! Where was the legitimating factor for that?!

No wonder the Center of Th’Isterrain was sick or gone or dying. No one paid it any mind anymore. How often do you take your whole world for Granted? Likewise, the boy was more convinced of anything that he had no great ground for truths or even this very insight. And yet this very belief never faltered. A ground he did not walk off of.

It wasn’t true - they weren’t not in contact with Center. It was just they were using her authority to know they weren’t in contact with her! Worse than no contact they were using her against herself. This was positively infuriating and must stop, the boy tried to think.

Until he realized how thoroughly he was doing it himself (he knew he did not know Center – just like everyone else). But – crucially – he did not yet see clearly how he was doing it. He saw it in his grounding of belief and its conviction (a grounding itself), but how do you just fundamentally change your ground beliefs? He wondered.

He drew upon a blank then. Knowing he had to ‘think’ – but not now how – the form of the problem had come and the movement of the ‘thought’ had changed in this new light. He saw then how daunting a task this would be. It was going to be a Journey Beyond Heroes. And he knew not how to turn, or where to turn, or even if to turn, for help.

*********

For a long time the boy went over and over thoughts of depression. It was like having a question just on the tip of your tongue not well-formed enough to even clarify – but pressing in need.

He wandered aimless and miserable for days struggling to contemplate the vast intuitive feel that would not crystallize into formal thought. Now that he truly knew his goal – the journey was breaking him. With more time or intelligence or a teacher or an omen or advice … something…he could work through it. But nothing he could do could render it.

He began to stop trying – was Th’Isterrain even really worth it? Was Center? Apathy overcame him at the edge of a bog. Scores of twiggy thin dead trees and tuft grasses spotted the land popping up here and there with a thin cloud of tangled white mist always flitting about its surface and shores.

Why go in? Why go back? Why do anything? Answers, supposedly, lay everywhere with nary a key. He sat and cried not knowing what for–back where he’d started once again, feeling so close yet farther than ever before. He stopped believing in his skill to even really start the quest much less finish it. He’d feel his mind reel at complexities unseen and lunge at the understandings only to be left holding wisps and tatters of coherence.

It started to rain and the bog swelled and engulfed him. Mired – he sat contemplating and dazed and feeling lost. Eventually he just quit trying and flopped back in the mud. Almost totally concealed save for part of his face to breath, none could see the lost observant.

Swamp things happen as swamp things do and he watched. He observed that way for a long time – stirring nothing. He saw it was a trap needing thinking which could not be thought – like trying to look for the boundaries to an imaginary land…

Since nothing was helping he just tried to stop, to stop thinking, to stop feeling, to even stop being on this damn quest. He thought – maybe then something would happen. It didn’t. Either he wasn’t stopping everything or that too did not help.

He wanted to become desperate but did not know what to become desperate about. He cried some more – though this didn’t really help either. Then it crossed his mind to write this story down. At first the thought was cynical so they too would not waste their time. But then it came more profoundly. Maybe that’s what the feather meant! He’d use the feather as pen and mud from the bog as ink and he’d write it down someplace for passing folk to read and think about.

And so he set to his task of composing in his mind a story. The story of a self who goes in search for itself (unbeknownst to itself) he thought to himself with a grin. The boy knew there was more to the story than from where he was at he could see. But this would begin it. And so the composition grew in his mind unfinished.

He wandered away from the bog carrying a good supply of it with him ready to turn into ink when need be not really looking for the place to write this all out just yet. He thought of his trials and tribulations as the story but those weren’t the core of this story. He knew he had to write more of himself and his seeking into it (somehow he didn’t think writing a fiction story would work).

It struck him then how no one in Th’Isterrain had a self-story (a self-myth). Maybe this was the way to his center and via that to the Center of Th’Isterrain (it was, at least, a thought). He did not know. When he found some parchment, though, he sat down and began writing anyway And then he wondered… Where might all this occur?

He thought it to be an imaginary land – but much like this one. Like this inner experience of wandering around seeking inner solace. Vast in terrain but familiar for the most part – just like This Terrain!

As he felt this within himself – his mind, his place, in this land – neither the rich terrain nor just the experience itself was what he needed – it was their relation. That’s when it began – a tiny shimmer of insight into ‘symbol’ – that what Center meant was not a thing to be thought or really even felt in a moment like a flash of emotion. Center was a sense wider than the mind’s view of it.

That’s when he saw that where this story happens is in the self too. Character, goal, and setting would all be one. Yet the sense of story, the sense of center (Center), could not reveal that. As story its guise must remain somewhat hidden. Of course, Center was never really hiding, the boy realized. But that’s why she’s always subtle there was always a guise she needed to be taken under (seeking on the outside what is only within). Guised in the real – the ground, the authority, he was seeking was the sense of story itself – but, importantly, self-story. And in this sense very subtle but very crucial – for a self story which is not "real" can easily be seen through.

It would have to be a story about the self as the thing wondering through itself on a journey looking for itself. And it struck him how odd this would be. How to write such a story? How to even begin? He wondered if his characters would know they were in a fictional world. And… crucially, he wondered if his readers would. For if they did not realize their own story-of-self created right as they read he’d have missed his point.

He struggled with a format within which to frame all this. It’d have to be a story which encompassed itself, told its own tale in the making – committed its own sin – lost Center only to find it again. But to do this on purpose – to structure it so that would verge on genius he knew he did not have (only Center does). And so he began to slowly settle in to the telling of the story (of the self as the thing wondering through itself looking for itself…).

Ch. 2

The boy knew the story must go on – deeper though. Somehow there was more to be told (or done). The link between story-telling and Center-healing was still just a story. And he wondered what his place was in it. The inner structure was clear, but what relation to the author?

He glanced around where he’d found the parchment and had began to scratch all this down. He noticed it was again a familiar part of Th’Isterrain, though one that had begun to take on a new hue. Could he be a story told – a mere unreal? How could that be?! It seemed, felt, so obviously real! But he knew dreams were that way too. So real came from you…at least, in a way. But this happened without his (direct) control – again he just could not make belief deliberately. How then do we do it, believe (in life or in dream)? He wondered. He began to feel a weight of a division of labor in his mind.

But if I can’t do it all how can it be done at all? the boy continued ‘talking’ the problem aloud to himself. How do we tell the story of self in a real way? How do we get to Center in such a way that it is no longer story? He had no idea how to make belief without making believe. He also started to wonder – very seriously now – what his role was in the overall thing…

If I’m not a story then am I reality? The boy wondered. That seemed wrong too – and filled his head with dizzy images of being the truth. What then am I he wondered? If I’m not a story nor reality, I am, at least, the thing for which story can become reality and (dizzyingly) reality can become story. What’s that, though, we wondered?

But things had been going on like this for too long