Unraveling Strings
Image from Unravel. Available on X Box.
Maybe we don’t have to make sense of our stories after all.
I once believed that life was strung together by a long string. Much like the game Unravel, one would get through each level of life as a being of yarn. Every step forward would cost a significant portion of what kept us together. To walk forward was life itself, and the used string would be left on the ground as a map to where we started. I therefore would attempt to think like a storyteller. “If I were writing my own story, what would be the natural progression of events?” I’d ask myself and I’d always look back to the bright red thread that exposed my path to get where I was. There were two problems with this. One, I’d rely on a path that had to therefore make some sort of sense from a time where I was not even making my own decisions. The string attached itself to a childhood where I had to make sense out of circumstances I couldn’t control. Then there was the other glaring problem that I was not the author to my life. We attempt to write our story but the Man with the pen tends to throw in plot lines we did not see coming.
As an artist, it made sense to craft a story where each scene naturally transitioned to the next so that the audience could follow what was happening without pausing and declaring, “This makes no sense.” I’d then go back all the way to my birth. Why were you born in another country? That has to make some sort of sense to the plot. Why did you end up in this other country? Why didn’t you stay in the one you were born in? That has to make sense. Why then were you taken from the country you moved to BACK to the country you were born in as a teenager? That has to make sense. If it didn’t make sense, I’d have plenty of ways to force a good narrative. I concluded that our stories were a map to our future. In my 20’s, I was sure I had enough story written for me to forecast the remaining years of my life, and as a faithful character, I was determined to see the tale to the end.
It was only in my mid 30’s that this hypothesis of life derailed and I realized that it was too hard to be both the character and author. Perhaps I was simply out of thread. I’d made too many false moves, tangled myself around too many rocks, and just dangled there unmoving. My string that was meant to be attached to each chapter of my life resembled a ball of writer’s block. More likely, I had determined my story from long ago and because the story was locked in place, I could not reason that I’d go off script. That is, until the Writer did it for me. Now, there is no part of my own story that I recognize. The scene takes place in a city that I hardly heard of, in a house I could not afford, and in an occupation that I would have rejected. In fact, the whole thing looks like a whole “other” story altogether. It’s not the sequel to the first. It just decided to be as different as humanly possible, as if there were no rules tying the whole thing together. The string was cut, the console restarted, and when the screen came back on- I was in a whole new level I did not recognize.
There remains no doubt that our past is some sort of map. To ignore it would be a mistake, but I had taken it as an immovable plot line that was drawn out of a hat and told, “force this into a story that flows.” Sometimes life doesn’t flow. Sometimes it doesn’t link so easily. Sometimes we are forced to just cut the string and create something entirely different because the string is connected to a past that no longer fits the future plot. If you’re unhappy with where you are, remember there’s a reset button. It doesn’t automatically erase the progress made but it allows us to look outside the only story that makes sense within our mind. If we’re willing, our stories can evolve. They can become so far off the original seven books but why not? I have found there is far less pressure as a character than there is an author. All I have to be is willing to play my part.