Do You Believe Stories?

It is March 29th. Welcome to yestohellwith.com.

Today is my daughter’s birthday. Her name is Emma. I have called he “Little Package” since she was a baby. Sadly, I have not had a real conversation with her in perhaps 8 or 10 years.

Why? She has a story.

Because stories are powerful.

Every person lives inside a story, stories we create. A story about ourselves. A story about others. A story about what happened, who was right, who was wrong, who is good, who is bad.

And after enough years, the story becomes more real than the truth.

My daughter knows what she has been told – the stories of others have shared with her. But does she know me?

The government creates stories. Society creates stories. Families create stories. We are told who the fool is, who the liar is, who the criminal is, who the bad father is. And when enough people repeat the same story, most accept it without ever asking the most important question:

Is it true? Or, what is truth?

We do this to each other every day.

Some label a man as a Tom Cat. Or a woman, selfish. We create a label, and then we mistake the take for reality.

But reality is not the story.

Reality is what exists beneath the story—before the judgment, before the prejudice, before the fear.

The government depends upon stories. It wants you to believe that authority is obligation. That accusation is guilt. That definitions are whatever they say they are. That if enough people repeat something, then it becomes true. Yes, the government uses definitions that are not clear. Rather, they are nuanced, obscured, deceptive, and weaponized.

The truth is not within such deceit. Truth does not come from repetition. Truth does not come from majority opinion. Truth does not come from labels.

Truth exists independent of the story. The Government’s story is not true. Emma’s story about herself is not true. Her story of her father is not true.

So today, on my daughter Emma’s birthday, I ask you to consider this:

Who in your life have you reduced to a story?

Who have you never truly seen because you have only seen the label?

And what story have others created about you? And most of all, what story have you created about yourself?

Perhaps the greatest freedom in life is to set the story aside—to become, for one moment, a blank slate—a table rasa – and to create the opportunity to meet another human being in the present, without the burden of what others have said.

Today I send love to my daughter. I invite you to send her love as well.

And perhaps, somewhere, she will feel it. Perhaps she will acquire the insight and wisdom to discard stories and to embrace what is - truth. May we all do this.

And as always, may truth reign supreme.

Get full access to YesToHellWith at yestohellwith.substack.com/subscribe