Life Is a Mystery

See, this is the thing about history.  His story.  That's all it is.  The Old Man's version of events, which basically the rest of us are supposed to accept as the undisputed truth.  Well, call me cynical, but I've never been one to take things on trust, and I happen to know that history is nothing but spin and metaphor, which is what all yarns are made up of, when you strip them down to the underlay.  And what makes a hit or a myth, of course, is how that story is told, and by whom. . . .

And because this isn't history, but mystery--my story--let's start with me for a change.  Others have already had their chance to tell their version of events.  This is mine.

Joanne Harris, The Gospel of Loki

Mystery of life viewed through a toy lens

“Doesn’t matter what anyone else would call it, Len,” he says. “This is our story to tell.”

This is our story to tell. He says it in his Ten Commandments way and it hits me that way: profoundly. You’d think for all the reading I do, I would have thought about this before, but I haven’t. I’ve never once thought about the interpretative, the storytelling aspect of life, of my life. I always felt like I was in a story, yes, but not like I was the author of it, or like I had any say in its telling whatsoever.

You can tell your story any way you damn well please.

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And it’s just dawned on me that I might be the author of my own story, but so is everyone else the author of their own stories, and sometimes, like now, there’s no overlap.

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Life’s a freaking mess. In fact, I’m going to tell Sarah we need to start a new philosophical movement: messessentialism instead of existentialism: For those who revel in the essential mess that is life. Because Gram’s right, there’s not one truth ever, just a whole bunch of stories, all going on at once, in our heads, in our hearts, all getting in the way of each other. It’s all a beautiful calamitous mess.

Jandy Nelson, The Sky Is Everywhere

That's a quick, fun take.  I love the wordplays on history/mystery and existentialism/messessentialism.  For a more in-depth, serious consideration of the idea of life as a mystery, check out the previous post: Um, Maybe . . . Kinda . . . I Dunno: Or, Ambiguity.