Story is identity as experience. If we can not experience it, it is not a story. A story is different from experience though, because we are telling what we experience to ourselves and to others. Our experience has become a narrative. It is re-presented in the mirror and presence of identity. In one way or another our story tells us who we are, what we value and want, and what we are going through, whether it is the narrative of an individual, an organization, or a whole society. The historical fact is that organizations and societies that fail to provide this cultivation of identity will self destruct. WisdomPoint pinpoints this cultural identity as the transcendent, transformative and integrative understanding of ‘unity in diversity’. Societies err on the side of unity in fascism, and on the side of diversity in anarchy.
The story of life
A story frames purpose, value and meaning as a narrative in time. There is a drama unfolding in time. A story without drama is a report. The meaning and purpose of a story involves drama. The meaning and purpose of a report involves figures, statistics and objectives. Drama is a magical thing. It motivates us profoundly. Drama engages us deeply. Drama is about identity and how it fares in the world. That thousands of people have died from an earthquake is a statistics. What makes it a drama is the personal suffering and bravery of the person just around the corner. We can relate to that empathetically and emotionally on the level of our own existence in this world.
The self is engaged empathetically and emotionally as drama in this world. We are a living and breathing narrative since the day we have been born, and we share the fundamentals of this narrative with all human beings. There is a big question involved with this human narrative. Is the purpose and meaning of this narrative transcendental or not? A transcendental narrative involves a purpose and meaning beyond birth and death. The drama revolves around transcendent values beyond the life of the body. If that is the case we have mythology, religion and metaphysics involved. If it is not the case our drama just revolves around our survival, seeking the pleasures of the body and the senses while avoiding pain.
We side step this central question for a moment for the sake of a pragmatic wisdompoint approach aside from speculation and beliefs about a transcendent purpose of human life. There is a narrative whether it transcends birth and the body or not. This narrative has three distinct levels for everyone.
The drama of existential needs and survival
How the only boy of a Chinese family gets abducted to be sold for slave labor, and they have to form vigilante groups to find their boys again, because the police and other officials are bribed. How mothers in Indian villages sell one kidney to the black market of organ harvesting. How the African child dies of pneumonia because the medicine it gets is fake. There is a lot of syndicated crime and human exploitation happening on this level, because people are powerless and nobody looks out for them. The experience and self narrative revolves around raw survival. The movie ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ shows this drama of meeting our immediate existential needs. Beyond this level we have
The drama of individuation and object orientation
How the self makes something of the world in accordance to some inner drive and want. The world becomes a playground for the individual narrative. This is the dramatization of the entrepreneur. The world becomes an object to the intentions, the will, and the intelligence of the individual person. This is the narrative of a Donald Trump or Bill Gates. Charlie Chaplin with his character of the little tramp employs both, the narrative of survival and of individuation in very engaging ways. Beyond the level of individuation we have
The drama of ‘Essencing’
This drama sacrifices the narrative of individuation and often times even the narrative of survival for the sake of something that transcends life. The soldier who is willing to give his life for an ideal or his homeland. The monk who gives up all worldly possessions and individual aspirations for the sake of a higher being or state beyond existence. The fire man who risks his own life in order to safe others. This narrative tells us how the individual transcends the concepts and desires of individual achievement and object orientation, how it seeks “the holy grail”, finds enlightenment, and embodies ‘universal principle’.
I heard an interesting and true story this morning while I was driving to the airport told by the person himself. He was very successful in business and had realized his dream life when he had a car accident. He remembers lying there with his body shaking and in shock, blood all over himself. His whole life went by him in the face of possible death. It felt like nothing to him. All his achievements became meaningless facing death. He survived, and he got on a plane to Africa. He had heard that 25 000 children die yearly (?) in a certain region, just because they did not get the right medicine or treatment. He developed a business model that gets good quality medicine to remote areas and systematically uproots greed and corruption.
This is the narrative where individual achievement converts into essencing. Essencing implies humanity, and therefore works for the highest good of all human beings.
The drama of leadership
True leadership stands on the edge of essencing. A true leader knows how to transcend his needs and wants of individual achievement for something bigger. He knows how to listen, how to look out for others, how to support and encourage them. He knows the integrative force of the greater picture, he can think the synthesis of all facets involved. He may still do it for material, objective success, but he is real close to transcending the concepts and desires of objects and individuation.
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