The stories we tell ourselves and hold ourselves captive with

People love stories. It’s the one quality that sets us apart from other animals, if you ask me: the ability to make up stories. We are capable of creating fiction, concoctions, of air mongering, and so on. In short, we can imagine things that have nothing to do with the truth. We can fantasise.

So far everyone will be able to agree, I’d say. What many people don’t realise is that we also fantasise our daily life. Our whole life, our entire society, is one giant work of fiction. Everything we consider to be the way things work in our world was once invented by a human being, or a group of them. These fabrications have resulted in laws, norms, values ​​and beliefs. We find them in the phrase ‘that’s just the way it is’. We find them under the nominators culture and tradition. Without the fruits of our imagination, we could never function in such large groups. Thanks to the stories, we have common beliefs and goals, which helps us keep our noses pointing the same way.

The world is made up

But it is fantasy nonetheless. So if someone tells you that something cannot or will not work because the world – the whole of human ‘civilisation’ – is not constructed like that, it’s nonsense. Behind every socially accepted way of doing things is a fabrication. Behind the belief that you shouldn’t be naked in public, that it’s rude to burp or fart, that kind of everyday stuff. But also that the earth is there for humans to use as they please.

If you keep that in mind at all times, the world will suddenly look very different. You’re going to see through dogma and perceive the nonsense of much of what we’ve always taken for granted. This process is the beginning of returning to your origin and the essence of things and is therefore invaluable.