The Space Between Stories

[jennypenny]

Charles Eisenstein is the author of Sacred Economics and The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible. He has a good blog. He’s currently working on a project called The Space Between Stories about times of transition. I’m interested in it for personal reasons, but it seems relevant to ERE because so many people seem to get stuck between realizing that the mainstream narrative doesn’t work for them and developing a new one based on ERE principles. I think it also addresses the melancholy many feel when they abandon the old way of thinking.

Here’s a blog post about the project … http://www.thenewandancientstory.net/ho ... en-stories
He’s doing an online course about it. It’s not free, but I’m considering it … http://charleseisenstein.net/e-course/
The course website (with a good, short video) … http://spacebetweenstories.net/

Eisenstein’s websites:
http://charleseisenstein.net/
http://www.thenewandancientstory.net/

Direct link to the video ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oevXkJY-fE



Part of the course description ...

What is the space between stories?

It is the time when the old story of who I am, what is real, and how to navigate life has broken down. It is the time when my familiar ways of making meaning are no longer relevant. I don’t know who I am. What had seemed so permanent, reliable, understandable and real is revealed as an illusion.

It is a state of “I don’t know.” Our society is entering it, and so are many of us as individuals.

Usually some kind of crisis initiates this state, perhaps in work, relationship, health, or money. It could also happen through a powerful experience that irreparably breaches one’s story of self and story of the world. Either way, we know that normal isn’t coming back again.

From the emptiness, the letting go, the unknowing of this state, something truly new can emerge. It happens in its own time, according to its own unknowable wisdom and logic. Sometimes the new story (and the ways of thinking, being, and doing that accompany it) emerges gradually, in glimpses and revelations, disappointments and setbacks. For others, it seizes them and plunges them into a new world so quickly that they hardly know what happened. Even so, because we live in a society built upon the Story of Separation, those living in the new story face great challenges – economic, social, psychological – that come from that disconnect.

This process is not necessarily linear. I do not mean to imply that some are in the old, some in the new, and that the latter are therefore more evolved. This transition has many dimensions. We can be bound by the unconscious habits of separation in one area, while free from them in another. But I find that each breakthrough invites others to happen, until no aspect of life remains untouched.

[J_]

"I think it also addresses the melancholy many feel when they abandon the old way of thinking"

Jenny, I think it (should) happen(s) all the time through life. Accepting ERE principles and changing your habits is a clear one. But also post ere and having learned to use your freedom, there are still transitions to undergo, or better, if you are becoming aware of important changes, to induce one. I go through one too, having so much free time and made (together) everything almost on an automatic pilot, DW and I need to explore life (a little?) more independent of each other. That new, that's difficult, for both of us. It is also her hormonal transition which every one gets through around midlife. I suppose I have had my masculine version of it some time ago.

So I am glad that you brought this topic, and see what it brings to learn about it.

[Dragline]

I've read Sacred Economics. Eisenstein is a modern-day mystic who reminds me of Meister Eckhart. Here's a video about that guy and a modern thought application for the curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JsosOoSdMv8

I would hope my life has more than one narrative to it, with maybe some spaces in between and maybe some overlaps. Like chapters in a book with that blank space before you get to the next one.

It is a real modern-day challenge to accept that a state of "I don't know", is in fact a natural state to be in, at least for part of the time. We are trained to think that we should always have an answer for ourselves that's knowable right now, when its really not humanly possible.

But if you only ever have one narrative for yourself, you end up in that sorry state of defending it for its own sake -- Emerson's "foolish consistency", which usually takes the form of "I can't do such-and-such, because my current narrative says I can't", or the one you may have heard directed your way "you can't do such-and-such because my narrative about you (and everyone else) says you can't."

Everyone should be allowed to be the captain of their own narrative, although its true that many would rather shirk the responsibility. "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." -- Thoreau

[stand@desk]

Great post by dragline..

I really like this topic. There seems to come points in life where you are willing to give up your strongly held views for something else. This probably happens when someone new comes into your life, or spending more time with someone new that you haven't before. You really become a different person. Possibilities emerge, the self you wanted to be but were not sure if you would become, becomes a reality. You find out what priorities are really important, and they may have changed. And the crazy thing is that you priorities and desires may flip 180 degrees!

The reason I make these statements is because my wife and I are expecting a baby later this year and I was never one to want children and I was scared of the prospects of not having enough time or resources or emotional energy or aptitude to have children. Now those concerns are softening and it has just sort of happened. I haven't had to partake in a step by step process to get myself to this point emotionally, it just sort of happens behind the scenes.

Our lives will change very much but I still hold ERE principles very closely, but yet they are now different then when I first discovered ERE several years ago as a single man. It truly is a gift to be in transition, it feels like a rebirth and it's where new greenshoots of inspiration and innovation and understanding are born.

[Ego]

It seems to me that navigating a major life change is actually easier prior to becoming financially independent than it is after. The need to earn a living creates a structure for the next phase. Once that need is satisfied, the guardrails are gone. That freedom – to do anything – can be both exhilarating and daunting.

Ribbonfarm has a recent post about the importance of using imagination to navigate this change well with the goal of reaching self- actualization. I’m a long way from self-actualization but one of the point I found useful is to practice by using what is typically the more difficult imaginative solution even when non-imaginative solutions are available.

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2015/02/18/a- ... -universe/

[disparatum]

It is a real modern-day challenge to accept that a state of "I don't know", is in fact a natural state to be in, at least for part of the time. We are trained to think that we should always have an answer for ourselves that's knowable right now, when its really not humanly possible.

I think this is one of the more profound (to me) realizations I've had over the past two years. Understanding this at a visceral level has led me to suddenly see many of the unacknowledged assumptions that generate much of the middle/upper class script that many of my peers seem to be following and that I am sometimes rather uncomfortable deviating from myself. For me, I've sort of concluded that many (most) of our decisions are made from positions of very profound uncertainty. If one accepts this, then much of what passes for advice and guidance to people my age stops making sense. Identifying a passion at a young age (as we go through high school/college) that we'd like to pursue as a career seems foolish given how little we know about ourselves and the world (in general and definitely at that age). But the typical suggestion is that if you don't know your passion then you need to find out before you can have a meaningful career. Furthermore, setting ambitious 10 year and even 5 year goals and a set of intermediate mile stones to get there seems silly given how likely we are to encounter the unknown unknowns on the way there. For me, Iooking back at some of my biggest decisions so far, the results/benefits that I've come to value most highly as a direct consequence of those decisions are decidedly NOT the ones I anticipated having when I made the decision and certainly weren't the REASON I made them. How do you deal with that?

In my current job, I find myself speaking frequently to groups of very bright engineering/science students at pretty selective technical schools . What is really interesting to me is how unimaginative their immediate goals seem. A large percentage are only interested in research or design and want a job doing the same. It is sometimes difficult to get them to see that maybe they're interested in that because those are the predominant career paths of the professors they spend much of their time around. It's possibly the only career path they really have any familiarity with. And there seems to be very little awareness of their own lack of knowledge. Interestingly, the ones who are willing to think outside the box are the ones doing poorly within the current narrative. This is not so surprising, but my conclusion is that, given the real uncertainty in this world most of which can't be eliminated by more rigorous thinking or more detailed planning, exploration by failure is often the only meaningful way to understand the world around you. I think often of the anecdote in Bateson's Mind and Nature:

"[...]For example, there is exploration. It seems to puzzle psychologists that the exploring tendencies of a rat cannot be simply extinguished by having the rat encounter boxes containing small electric shocks. From such experiences, the rat will not learn not to put his nose into boxes; he will only learn not to put his nose into the particular boxes that contained electric shocks when he investigated them. [...] from the rat's point of view, it is not desirable that he learn the general lesson. His experience of a shock upon putting his nose into a box indicated to him that he did WELL to put his nose into that box in order to gain the information that it contained a shock. In fact, the 'purpose' of exploration is, not to discover whether exploration is a good thing, but to discover information about the explored"

Understanding this has really put that somewhat cliche Thomas Edison quote ( "I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that don't work") into perspective. It is NOT some banal statement about perseverance. It is a fundamental insight into the nature of learning.

Anyway, to respond to the OP, I think maybe it's a mistake to see ERE as one goal amongst many to be achieved. I almost see it as a carrot, something to get you moving. Or maybe better as a sort of bootstrapping process into a higher order understanding of the world. If you see it simply as another narrative, I think you potentially run into the same problems that you run into when you get to the "end" of any narrative. Being very successful at the consumerist narrative looks very different but perhaps feels similar (psychologically) to being very successful at the ERE narrative. I've reached the goal--two kids, two cars, mcmansion in nice suburb, now what? or low expenses, BIFL possessions, healthy diet and exercise, early retirement, now what? Maybe the more important understanding is not necessarily the principles or values espoused by ERE but the values or principles necessary to switch from one narrative to another. This also makes me wonder if people are liable to draw different conclusions from the experience depending on whether or not they were already successful within the narrative that they are leaving. I mean, would you come to a different conclusion about achieving ere if it was just as easy for you (psychologically) to work 40 years and buy increasingly bigger houses and more expensive gadgets. I will have to think about this more, because I don't think I'm being very clear.

I guess my final thought is that ERE is a pretty robust strategy but maybe as a consequence doesn't encourage us to fail in meaningful ways. I think most of us would be worried about losing all the money we've spent years saving, certainly many of the discussions revolve around preventing exactly that, but is there a way to get beyond that? I'd have to think more about what I mean by this. I'm not sure.

[1taskaday]

Two short comments:

1.Surely the key point if the ERE plan fails is the tool set acquired while reaching FI-these will ensure the ability to survive no matter what happens.

2.For me I think it is critical that I realise that once retirement happens it is then that the real journey/challenge begins...I will have to travel internally and try to find my purpose or meaning in an unscheduled life.
Both a scary and exciting thought...the transition that this topic alludes to.

Love this topic and wish there was a separate classification on this forum for people who have reached FI and made this transition...so much vital information needed for us still on the journey...

[cmonkey]

Thanks for sharing these links, jennypenny. I did not know about Charles Eisenstein before seeing his info posted here, and its amazing how he connects right to the deepest thoughts I have on our culture, the problems we face and the transition our world is going through, all the way down to the individual level.

My space between stories really began right after I got married in 2010 when I started paying attention to alt news and learning about all the egregious activities our government and corporations are engaging in. I think I followed a pretty normal track of getting angry about it, feeling helpless and complaining all the time before realizing how much that didn't help, plus the narrative of wide spread conspiracy didn't sit well with me. Taking small steps in my life to change how I engaged the world was the next step and that led to learning about energy issues, demographic challenges that are coming, our ballooning debt and fiscal problems (and the accompanying anger/feeling helpless that goes with it).

Just a week ago I think I may have stumbled into the next chapter with a decision to significantly reduce a stress point for myself. I feel as though there are certain events that marked change points over the last few years and this really feels like one. It sounds cliche, but I really do feel like I am transitioning from caterpillar to butterfly. I am excited for what's coming next because I feel its a good space to be in.

It is quite an amazing feeling and area to be in to be able to recognize that our culture is in a space between stories. Seeing the faces of strangers come and go and being able to see the fear and the sadness and anger they display really confirms everything Charles (and others) talk about. Wondering if they can see it on your own face. Actually seeing all the garbage on the streets and feeling the pain and sadness that goes with it, wondering why no one cares to clean it up (myself included).

[jennypenny]

The more I think about this topic, the more work I realize I have to do. Despite all my talk to the contrary, I think I've always pushed myself to make sure I wasn't 'wasting time' and, as a result, I wasn't allowing any space between my personal stories. I'm starting to think that I should take it even further and view my life more as the 'stories between spaces' instead of the other way around. Always having something (or several somethings) going on is just another form of overcomsumption.

[cmonkey]

Always having something (or several somthings) going on is just another form of overcomsumption.

This is something I am constantly dealing with. I always have something I think I need to be doing, things on the back burner waiting to get done. Projects I am working on that get put off for other projects. Learning to let go of certain things so you can more fully enjoy and experience something else is a challenge.

[theanimal]

Anyone end up singing up? If so, how is it?

[jennypenny]

@theanimal--I wasn't mentally ready, so I didn't sign up.

Eisenstein put his book The Ascent of Humanity up online for people to read. I thought it might be of interest to some. I haven't read it yet.

[cmonkey]

It is a real modern-day challenge to accept that a state of "I don't know", is in fact a natural state to be in, at least for part of the time. We are trained to think that we should always have an answer for ourselves that's knowable right now, when its really not humanly possible.

Back in February 2015 a conference was held called The Economics of Happiness. I have been making my way through the presentations, but found this one to be particularly comforting and enjoyable. While watching it, I felt like he had tapped into the next level of conversation to be had during our cultural transition. It reminded me of your statement of accepting a state of 'I don't know'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9hvW9cYQKM

[cmonkey]

Here's another great interview with Charles.

I really think the 'feeling of living two lives' might resonate strongly with people in this community. I know it does with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfx6WVkpQdI

[jennypenny]

I like his idea about following a compass instead of a map.

[Ego]

Eisenstein has been mentioned repeatedly here. I thought this would be the best place to discuss his recent series.

Part 1 https://charleseisenstein.org/essays/gi ... -festival/