Lawerence of Arabia
Background
Navigating Insurmountable Obstacles
I think most people have experienced a time in their lives when they feel like they’re trapped in a bad movie. Have you? It’s like facing a brick wall, with nowhere to go. But if you are able to take a step back, rise above it all or even distance yourself form the scene, a way out that wasn’t obvious before may come into view. Therefore it’s really powerful to practice shifting you point of view, like being both the main character and the author in a story you are writing.
I was about 9 or 10 years old when the epic film, “Lawrence of Arabia” was released in Australia. It coincided with a visit to see relatives living in Brisbane. My uncle suggested were should all go to the movies, it would be a treat for us country folk. Dad wasn’t interested and mum really just wanted to spend time with her eldest sister. But my uncle was really keen. He had served in a transport battalion during the war and this film was one not to be missed. So he took my big sister and me and hiskids about our age to go to and see it.
We sat wondering in darkness as a long musical prelude played. I was overawed, right out of my comfort zone but the action soon got under way, a grand epic of old testament proportions and just as brutal. It would remain one of my favourite movies of all time. I think it left us all disorientated and I clearly remember my uncle describing to mum and dad how the projectionist got the reels of film mixed up and couldn’t find the first reel in time so played music while he organised. Thenin his haste started with the iron reel, so we got to see Lawrence’s death and funeral first, then went back to tell the story of his life.
I knew there was no mistake but didn’t have anything to say about the movie. I wouldn’t know where to start. The locations, the characters, the story arc, I had never experienced anything as grand not even in my imagination. What stayed with me was the scene following the perilous camel treck across the Nefud Desert in which Lawrence, against all advice from those who know better went back to rescue someone who had fallen asleep with exhaustion and was now stranded without water his death certain. After the rescue a fight breaks out between feuding tribes and a man is shot and killed. Unless the murderer is brought to justice there will be an uproar and the entire campaign fail. But the crime demands a life for a life yet if the executioner is from the feuding tribe old wounds would be opened. Therefore Lawrence carries out the execution himself, executing the very person he rescued.
Sherif Ali is resigned, the death is written:
T.E.Lawrence:
Nothing is written.
Sherif Ali:
Truly, for some men nothing is written unless THEY write it themselves.
In the course of our personal, professional, business and organisational lives we face irreconcilable challenges and forced to rewrite our story or succumb to the inevitable.
Joseph Campbell’s insight that all great stories, whether they be cultural Myths or biographies conform to a deeper pattern that alert us to greater freedom that is available to us. But theability to author our own stories past impossible challenges must be earned and it is through a “The Hero’s /Heroine’s Journey” we discover a pathway to a freer, wiser way of living.
Therefore having a sound navigation system stops you from getting lost on the way. But the Hero’s Journey is both a mirror and a window that enables us to reflect on our deepest passions and desires as well as providing us a perspective that can reorient us in our life’s journey.
I find mapping my current circumstances relative to a personal or professional challenge onto the hero’s journey points to the form of what to do next. That in itself is encouraging and opens maybe an escape hatch or even a double barrage door to an alternate trajectory for the story. Knowing that this current road is one of trials also implied that this too shall pass. At another time the realisation of receiving a boon calls for celebration to fortify oneself for the onward journey. At another time it may be the awareness that I am refusing my intuition that may have the key to unlock a mystery.
Fractals and stories
Numbers can be convincing just as much as we are moved by stories. It is a cultural preference. Other cultures prioritise relationships over transactions. What is most important to you, making friends or making deals. I’ve oversimplified here to make a point, and that is that we have a preference that can be confusing if we try to do both simultaneously. But ultimately we make meaning using stories. Numbers need context, that is to say backstory, to have meaning. Furthermore the meaning we make of numbers vary as the stories about them change. In this way I believe stories are primary and being able to write our own stories is extremely powerful way to direct our lives. Whether consciously or unconsciously this is what we do anyway. The polls may predict which political party gains office but it is their narrative the determines if they do or not. Ultimately they are two sides of the same coin.
Stories contain patterns. In its simplest form, let’s say you hear some crying out, “Help!” You can’t get much shorter than that. Just one word. But when we hear that we process it as a story by making various interpretations and assumptions based on that one word. We will infer direction, perhaps the age and sex of the caller. We will also make a judgement on urgency and intensity.
We recognise stories as having a beginning, midle and end and with that comes a sense of satisfaction for the listener and the story teller. Some stories are multi layered and have stories within stories. Often they have repeating patterns either within the story arc or within the story layers, stories within stories. This introduces the second idea, that stories have a fractal quality, the stories within the stories may follow a similar parttern to the larger story, they are self similar on multiple levels.
The purpose of some stories is to repeat a pre-existing pattern, the purpose of other stories is to ‘change the narrative’, and there are many devices through which this takes place. There are ways of drawing the audience into a story, for instance by setting up a story and then not completing it, or by creating an emotional alignment and then avoiding distractions that would break the spell so cast. But most of all “the Hero/Heroine’s journey” illuminates the mostly unconscious workings a story telling and listening and provides not only a predictive tool for how the story might unfold, because this is one of the essential things about stories, our imagination becomes aroused when we catch a wiff of a story and we will provide our own elements for missing parts of the story based on our own experience and then eagerly anticipate being found correct in our assumptions or that there was something altogether different going on.
We are hard wired for story and when there is inadequate data on what is happening in a storied situation we encounter our inclination is to fill in the blanks based on what we already know from other situations encountered previously. It is an emotionally charged instinct for our very survival.
Coming of Consciousness
Becoming self aware
Gaining experience is really just having a story for some phenomena many of which arise incrementally over a long period of time. There are times when our incremental learning is interrupted and we learn something not by gradual accumulation but by an ordeal that changes the way we think about things. What was true before is never so again. There are new factors (data) that have to be taken into consideration that change everything. In short we are in some way not longer who we once were. Sometimes we grapple with finding the new stories that make sense of a new situation so alien is our current circumstance to our previous reality. We find it valuable to have help to map out where we are going either by finding a mentor who has experienced something like this already or we go within and find our own answers, or both. When this happens, and it happens to a greater or lesser degree for all of us, we know we are on a hero or heroine’s journey. Some look to old traditions for answers, others to progressive ideas some do both. Whichever way you choose, you find yourself writing your own story, with a new ending and sometimes it is useful to rewrite some past stories to better fit and provide the foundation for a new trajectory. With current understandings of stories, neuro plasticity and mindfulness we have more power to write our own story than ever before.
