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> This perspective that life is a narrative with upswings and downswings can itself be treacherous. Is this not certainly true? > Your life is not a prewritte
by mmj48 14y ago
> This perspective that life is a narrative with upswings and downswings can itself be treacherous.
Is this not certainly true?
> Your life is not a prewritten narrative with defined story arcs.
It seems to be that someone could believe in the statement before this and not this.
- tptacek 14y agoNo? It's definitely not true? It's The Gambler's Fallacy?
- mmj48 14y agoAh, now I understand. You're saying that it's fallacious to believe that an upswing will necessarily have a downswing, and vice versa, is that correct? What I understood (due to hastily coming to conclusions) was it is dangerous to believe that life has lows and highs.
- tripzilch 14y agoThat's right, but it's also important to realize that, in fact, there is no grand narrative[1]. Humans are compulsive pattern-recognizers and can turn any arbitrary independent sequence of events into a story. That doesn't mean the story is wrong, per se, but it does mean you cannot presume to know where a story "is leading up to". Because the only "complete" story is the one that is told afterwards. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_narrative http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_narrative (lots of "blah" btw)
- mmj48 14y agoAh, yes, thank you for the explanation.