Some people believe that there is truly only one story. This story is told over and over again but it is essentially the same story all the time. Sure the settings and characters change. The details change enough that we can have an unlimited amount of stories based all on this one theme.

“The Quest.”

Robert McKee explains this in words better than I can. He writes, “For better or worse, an event throws a character’s life out of balance, arousing in him the conscious and/or unconscious desire for that which he feels will restore balance, launching him on a Quest for his object of Desire against forces of antagonism (inner, personal, extra-personal). This is story in a nutshell.”

There are many times in our lives when we are thrown off balance. As such, our life is a collection of stories. We tell stories of our travels, our triumphs, our heartaches, and our struggles. Our lives could be written out in one long narrative as well. So if our lives are essentially story and that there is really only one story. It brings me back to my thesis that story is the nature of reality.

We tend to think science can give us the answers to the ultimate question. But science will always fail us. Science theories are being thrown out and replaced daily. And what is a scientific theory but a story? It’s a great story and it offers us a lot of insight into the world. But once again, it does so through story. The theory of evolution is but a story after all.

Mathematics tries to give us answers about the nature of reality as well. But an equation is also basically a story. Mathematics can be beautiful and I admire a lot of what we have discovered about math. Yet, like science, there always seems to be more to discover.

Mathematicians and Scientists are always on a quest to learn more about the nature of the universe. As such, I think it is safe to assume that both of these disciplines are, in fact, story. There is one story and that story is everywhere. Story must then be the nature of reality.

More Storied Thursdays to come
(I know it’s a day late this week but that was because of Bloggers Unite Day)