Desired narratives - What is the story that you want to tell?

Once upon of time...

I'm going to take a break from my stories and reflect on the narrative behind the stories. I normally use this blog to tell my tales retrospectively. This exercise of finding a narrative on our past seems to be something that we all do to evaluate our lives and to find meaning in the randomness and chaos of waking life.

As Steve Jobs once said:

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

This 'approach' of connecting the dots, as Steve Jobs described, is what brings meaning into our lives. We need to firmly believe that 'the dots' will connect because we need to find some meaning to alleviate the stress that the thought of randomness of events brings us. This desire of fitting our past events into a structured set of memories that narrate a story has been researched in social psychology. According to this research, we tend to fit a narrative that defines our identity and creates a sense of self and brings meaning into our life (McAdams, 2011).


And this is basically what I've been doing in this blog, fitting a narrative into my past 'failed attempts' to find love...

Moreover, we are not just driven to find a narrative into our past, but we also fit our future desires into a structured story. As a result, we unconsciously project into the future our inner and deeply embedded narratives and this shape the decisions that we make in the present. I'll give you an example...

A close friend of mine had a crush on a colleague at work and, despite the fact that it seemed to be a reciprocated feeling, she was convinced almost from the beginning that it would not work. This projected fear and visualization of possible pessimistic futures is what, in a way, might have precipitated the end of her story.

Just to clarify, the person from the example is not me, but her story has helped me to self-reflect on my own present and, as a result, I'm trying to identify my own inner desired narrative. What is the story that I want to create?

Our desires narratives are constructed out of our life expectations, desires and fears and they are often part of our own daydreams and thoughts... So, if these desires narratives drive our present decision-making... Can we identify them? Can we shape our desired narratives to our advantage?

Picture taken on the streets of Los Angeles (2014)

As this street billboard suggests, we should decide what story we want to create and go out and live it...

I'm not an emotional robot!

As weird as this statement might sound to my readers (if there is actually anyone really following), I have had this revelation over the past few weeks. For few years now, I considered myself to be a bit of an emotional robot. The reason for this strong self-evaluation of my deep emotions was due to the fact that I was unable to develop deep feelings for any of my online dates. I could developed soft comforting feelings for them but I was never as high in adrenaline, serotonin and dopamine to lose sleep, make stupid things or hold a silly smile and a red flush on my face throughout an entire day.

However, ever since I stopped the online dating world, a strange thing has happened to me... I have a crush on a real offline person... and this feels great!

The bad news on the contrary are that, at the moment, it is yet to be clarify if is a one-sided thing or she actually feels the same way or even worst if she is even gay (of bi) on the first place.... However, I'm very happy to learn that I am not an emotional robot and that I can have a teenager crush even on my very late twenties.

Drawing made by me :)!

According to the ancient Greeks (and they were very cleaver people), there are different types of love defined as follows (the information below has been taken from Wikipedia and other internet resources):

• Philautia - means "love of the self" and was divided in two types: narcissism, or self-obsession and  healthier version that enhanced your broader capacity to love.

• Agápe - generally denotes feelings for one's children and the feelings for a spouse, and it can also be described as the feeling of being content or holding one in high regard. This love is unconditional as it is hold whether the love given is returned or not, the person continues to love (even without any self-benefit).

• Philia - means "affectionate regard, friendship," usually "between equals." It denotes a general type of love, used for love between family, friends, a desire or enjoyment of an activity, and lovers.

• Storge - means "love and affection" and and refers especially of parents and children.

• Éros - means love, mostly sexual passion and involved a loss of control.

• Pragma - means "deep understanding" that developed between long-married couples.It was about making compromises to help the relationship work over time, and showing patience and tolerance.

• Ludus - flirting, playful affection and feelings of euphoria.

In the past through online dating I was able to experience a mix of Philia with some hints of Éros, however, due to the number of reasons enumerated on my previous post "My off-line off-dating new year's resolution for 2015" such as the building up of feelings from to casuals encounters, I was never able to experience a full Ludus meets Eros and  Philia that affected my appetite and distorted my sleep.

Therefore, my recipe for my readers for finding love (although it might not always be reciprocated) is to stop online dating and to explore offline flirting!

To be continued...  (possibly with a heart-broken following up post.....)