Last night I shared a meal and good conversation with a fellow story mapper. I knew from past conversations, my fellow trekker, Red, was in touch with many personalities, primarily the farmer, sensualist, and soldier. I brought to the conversation my writer, mostly. I was on the lookout for signs of personal neediness, the ever attending personas of Unheard, Feel Bad, and Out of Control Master. I was not in the mood to give this threesome storytime. They have been asked to undergo story reframing, but they are not enthusiastic about it, and if I’m not careful, they shove into the driver seat and take over.
My fellow trekker, Red, brought in good stories of walking for weeks along a trail. They found the inner peace of being nothing within nature. As a species, we may be toxic, spreading our stories of fear and anger like cancer, but Nature is indifferent to our tales of trauma entitlement. Recently I took on the challenge of being a nobody. Considering Unheard, Feel Bad and Needy are ever-present, stepping in the proverbial ring with Being Nobody, is a good test of my story mapping skill. I was inspired by Red’s story, finding the inner quiet of being nobody in the presence of Nature. I practice this mindset walking the beach, and it was good to compare notes with another trekker.
The conversation touched on matters of public leadership. Red spoke of walking the line between introversion and extroversion, with the Farmer being the introvert, the Soldier being the extrovert, and the Sensualist weaving back and forth between the two. The Farmer, content to attend to the neverending litany of daily tasks, working within Nature’s ways, is reluctant to step forth, to make decisions that affect others, and to find the courage to assume public leadership. The soldier does well under command, but Red is looking for a leadership persona that is less authoritarian. We discussed the merits of Sensualist weaving grace and beauty into the infinite journey between introversion and extroversion.
I shared stories of my characters, how the Writer has to step back to allow them room to live and breathe. The characters astonish me, and though I know they come through me, I also know they are not me. Unheard, Needy and Feel Bad personas sit like sullen children asked to contain Out of Control Master as I encourage the characters to evolve. One of the characters, a coder, an acknowledged Nerd, indifferent to a common obsession with getting in shape, is conversely fascinated with developing a program that uses keyboard and console tapping to send signals to the body, specifically evoking muscle organization congruent with calm, confident personas.
The conversation between Red and I discussed the nature of science fiction; we explored the possibility of the novel I’m working on coming under that genre. Though we spoke from different viewpoints, we shared a common belief that science fiction is a good mantle for me to assume and wear. After we parted, I sat and reflected on the reality of science fiction. The term is a noun, and the writing under this category is fiction based on imagined future scientific or technological advances and major social or environmental changes.
Certainly, the story mapping system I have come to depend on takes me into a sci-fi type of existence. I envision and live according to tenets that are not wholly represented in the here and now. I live in parallel lives, walk with many different personas, each assuming specific body shapes like our well-loved superheroes. Though shakeout, something animals use to shake off trauma, is well researched, it is not a practice humans can mimic. As story mapping is primarily based on feeling the muscle organization of the different personas taking action, I find myself taking treks into all kinds of trauma-informed holding patterns. The longer I can hang out in these unbearable fear zones, the more my muscles are able to shake off the stored memories and organize according to calm confidence. It’s definitely a sci-fi experience, though in the animal kingdom it is common practice to shake off trauma and continue in harmony with nature.
