Narrative Time

One year ago I discovered a philosopher called Paul Ricouer. Who spoke about how we create meaning about our lives through the use of narrative. This is because in our experience of our lives, and of time, there is an illusion of chronology, of sequence. By calling time an illusion, Ricouer did not mean to dispose of time altogether, he meant rather, to open up for a deeper experience of time, and to point to a reciprocal relationship between narrative and temporality.

If I think about my headspace this time last year, indeed, it seems so far away, and because I was so busy, there is not a story I could piece together as a narrative with events that create a plot, about what actually happened from then until now. It makes me think that perhaps in the year from now, I need to slow down a little, perhaps start keeping a journal again, so that I can look back and piece together a story.

But if I was to make sense of the soundbytes and pastiche that was an intense and somewhat fuzzy year, I would say I reclaimed my creativity, and this was the most important thing.

I would say it all might have began with a poetry festival I attended in the town of St. Andrews in Scotland, where I heard some Shetland poets, and significantly, the Booker-prize winning novelist and poet Ben Okri talk about the importance of creativity in our lives. Creativity and dangerous reading. I think Okri planted a seed in my head that day, something that dislodged a person I was trying to be for other people. I have realised that my creative self had become disconnected from my externally motivated self, a self that pushed towards extrinsic achievements and had forgotten that when we do not create, we merely regurgitate the ideas and personalities that the media and the government ventriloquises for us.

Now this might sound lofty and grand, but it got me to start painting and dancing again. As I walked on the beach on the oldest golf course in the world at Sunset, ultimately what was important was to be there. A moment to shout into the ocean, and leave my troubles there.

#One year ago, I learnt that water heals.

xx
Tiger Eye