I posted awhile ago, an outline for a 'postmodern fairytale' in jest at the very idea. Of late, I have been thinking that perhaps that is one of the great failures of our modern age: we are trying to live the fairytale without the plot. What on earth does that mean? Postmodernism basically asserts the truth that there are no truths; what is right for me is not necessarily right for you. It is quite absurd to think that a theory that nullifies truth will assert itself as a truth. But beyond this insurmountable paradox, it has become the leading theory of the age. What is right and good is what is right and good for me at this moment and hopefully it does not offend anybody else. In a world like this, there are no set rules or laws to govern the story. There can be no coherence in the plot and thus the story can only end in confusion and frustration. Rules, laws, morals, whatever you would call them, are not something we can arbitrarily do away with and still make sense of life. You cannot have a sensible story without rules and neither can you lead a meaningful existence without them. The very continuation of life depends on constant adherence to rules; if the universe or your body all of a sudden decided that it was no longer subject to the physical laws of reality, things would go very bad, very fast. The same applies to our view of reality. We are a civilization that does not know what it believes, why it believes, or how to live out those beliefs. No wonder we have issues with finding meaning, purpose, and direction in life. We have no map to guide our course!
The two greatest challenges in modern life to discovering what our own story is meant to be are busyness and loss of finitude in meaning. We do not take time to think, to ponder, to consider in this day and age. We stare at our screens and listen to our friends and inadvertently take in whatever is presented to us as true and right without any thought as to the true meaning of what is said. Our 'values' are a mishmash of personal feelings and pop culture with no truth or meaning or sense in much of it; worse, we do not live out those things we claim to believe most deeply. We simply act without thinking, doing whatever feels 'right' at the moment. A true set of beliefs means we know what we believe, why we believe, and live what we believe. A person who lives out their beliefs is truly a rare find in this modern age. We are so busy and distracted that we have forgotten how to think, let alone what to think. Words and ideas mean only what we think they should mean at that moment. This is why the great stories are so important, they remind us of a time when there were such concepts as right and wrong, justice and truth, when a word or idea had a true and finite definition. If we seriously delve into such works, perhaps we too may begin to see that there really are some truths in the universe that don't go away just because we ignore or forget about them. Our lives, our civilization will never amount to anything until we understand who we are, why we are here, where we are going, and why we do what we do. The Truth is out there, we just need to take the time to find it, understand it, embrace it, and live it out. Then, and only then, can our own story begin to make sense. Until then, we are nothing but the proverbial, headless chicken running futility about.
Most of the people of my acquaintance seem to be drifting through life, never sure exactly where they are going or why. There is no direction, no passion, just confusion, futility, and frustration. We do not like stories that do not make sense; infinitely worse is a life lived in such a state. The only cure is a map, a guide that does not change, which lays out the boundaries, traps, paths, and features of this landscape we call life. An adventurer that abandons his map is bound to get lost or fall into preventable disasters, is not life the same? What makes us think we can forget the rule and yet understand and navigate this confusing reality? We must rediscover Truth or we will never discover anything at all. This is not a new phenomenon. Man has had a guide, direct from the manufacturer, ever since the very Beginning when a cunning adversary once asked, "did God really say...?" It is a thing as old as man, a thing as old as sin. We are simply repeating that which all of our ancestors experienced for themselves. We like to do things our own way, write our own rules. But until we can create our own universe and arrange its physical laws to our own taste, perhaps it would be wise to consult the directions that came with the package if we hope to make sense of life.
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