I have often talked about this special feeling I get when I am absolutely comfortable with what and where I am living, and I feel at ease with things.
That feeling almost always happens when I travel back east to Ohio or to Warren Wilson College for homecoming. It has started to happen here, when I am out and about on a walk, hike, or geocacheing mission. I have started geocacheing, and I think that it has helped me see more of the places I'd otherwise not see. It gets me to investigate the micro level of things, and to get down and really dig into the dirt to find an cache. It also leads to points such as the image above, where you can see downtown Portland from up on the rise in Vancouver.
In that RadioLab/TED Radio Hour episode, they talked about the time and age old question of struggling with the fact of where this life leads us, and how we cope with death and the departure of what we think of as life. There was one part of the episode which really stuck out to me, and has helped calm my senses of where exactly I am going.
The speaker said that we should think of life as a book, with a beginning (birth), and an end (death), and that we should not worry ourselves with anything that came before the beginning or after the end of the book. Instead of being the outside reader of the novel, we are the characters in it, unknowing of what lies outside the story, and we should accept that. And it made total sense to me.
When we are reading a novel, watching a film, playing a game, or listening to music, there is only one method of storytelling tool that separates us from the narrative: the fourth wall. The idea that all three walls are there, setting the stage to let us look in, but the characters of the story are still separated from us and the outside world via the frontdrop, one which they cannot see past; the forth wall. Yet it is transparent to the viewer, and allows us to see through to observe the novel.
As you've probably heard before, there is a technique that takes finesse to pull off called "breaking the fourth wall", and it involves the characters of a narrative addressing and acknowledging the reader and the context outside the plot. Sometimes it's done terribly, sometimes it's done beautifully.
What has given me some calm about this though, is that as far as I'm concerned, I don't know if there is anyone reading my narrative, or if I'm living within a four walled and roofed story, but whenever I get overwhelmed, I keep in mind that the end chapter is there. And that I shouldn't worry about what lies outside my narrative, because my job is to experience the best of it that is there, and roll with the story.
But whenever I do get worried, I do at least know that all the walls aren't solid, and that windows do exist, and I can at least look outside and ponder about what may be beyond my narrative. But I try not to get too wrapped up in it all, because there is a whole novel to experience, and I want to keep on through those chapters.
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