Belief as a TOOL, not a RULE

When I was 13 years old, I was given a DVD of the original Japanese version of Godzilla (1954). As I watched a man in a dinosaur-shaped rubber suit stomping on miniature buildings and cars, I immediately fell in love with the movie. I loved the special effects and the story of a fearsome and terrible monster demolishing city after city, a cosmic natural consequence of nuclear weapons testing. 

We all learned about WWII in school over and over (why is American education so obsessed with WWII?). We all know about the bombs dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima that marked the beginning of the end of the war. Some teachers took a patriotic, celebratory tone when discussing these events, and others presented it soberly as a necessary evil. Either way, we learned the broad stroke facts. We took the quiz. We moved on to the Civil Rights section in the history book. 

At 13 I didn’t immediately pick up on on the greater themes in Godzilla, but after several viewings and reading about the movie I finally began to piece together the obvious, that the events in the film are all metaphor for the nuclear holocaust that occurred in WWII Japan by way of American atomic bombs. 

Suddenly, the movie was no longer a man in a dinosaur-shaped rubber suit stomping on miniature buildings. This really happened. Not a dinosaur monster from the sea, but the bombs. The death and destruction and loss. The war. The utter annihilation of millions of people in a moment. My heart broke. My stomach ached. I sobbed and wished the world was a kinder place and hated war with every fiber of my being.

This is the power of narrative. Stories are glimmering reflections and tiny projections of the human experience, or what we wish to experience, or what we hope to never experience, or what we could never experience in the material reality. Godzilla is not real. Does this fact make the story any less impactful? On the contrary, the power often lies in the delusion itself. The delusion can have a far greater impact than the truth ever will. Delusion can bring us closer to reality, or into another’s reality, by suspending it entirely. 

Narrative is not reserved for works fiction. Every person has a narrative we tell ourselves about our lives. About ourselves. About our families, our world, about everything. These narratives inform the values that guide us to make the decisions we make. Yet, they are based in utterly subjective delusions. 

Does your footing feel unstable? Does your brain feel scrambled? That is a GOOD thing! Recognizing that all of life is illusion is freedom, and it doesn’t mean that life doesn’t matter. Your beliefs don’t have to be “real” to matter. Your beliefs do not have to be a set of rules, but rather a set of tools to use and not use at your will. You’re free to let go and to take hold, to build reality and break it and rebuild it again. It means that the power of narrative can be harnessed for your benefit, your growth, your HEALING.