How Dying Showed Me the Power of Stories
[Music]
every day you wake up
is a new page in the narrative of your
life you
right away at this narrative hoping once
you write that final page
it’ll be a book worth reading on
september 13th
2018 my book nearly came to an abrupt
hall
for me that day is nothing short of a
miracle
i started that thursday feeling pretty
stressed as i was going to be giving an
interview for our local news station
about something i was doing at school
while i was just riddled with nerves i
knew i needed to put my best foot
forward and i was prepared to nail that
interview
however it was cut short as i suddenly
collapsed on the floor during the middle
of it
over the next few days i was in a coma
until i eventually woke up with
family in my bedside tell me i had what
doctors called a
sudden cardiac death
with no rhyme or reason as to why this
happened i was just
left dumbfounded and hopelessly lost in
my sense of security over my life
everything around me came to a
standstill nothing really mattered
except
trying to figure out how to move forward
from this
family and friends came to see me and
honestly i could have been happier to
have so much
love and support around me but the fact
of the matter was i was still lost and
unsure of the future ahead of me
wondering if i would just take a step
outside the hospital and die right there
go on my high school graduation stage
and die right there
my boredom and hazy days led me to a
video game that gave me some semblance
of order and the chaos that was my life
it was a game called dead cells a 2d
action game where you fight through
multiple levels of monsters until you
get to the end and face the main boss
seems simple enough but
the catch was that if you died anywhere
in the game you had to start all the way
over from the beginning
well you got to keep a few power-ups you
had no checkpoints
you lost all your weapons and you were
left back at square one
well you could have always just given up
on this challenge you would have beaten
the game and you had to overcome these
various obstacles and even death itself
just to win
i saw this game as a metaphor for my
life right there in the hospital
if i was ever going to keep persevering
and fighting for the life that i wanted
i needed to
envision what was ahead of me it was
stories like in this game that consumed
me as a child whether they were epic
battles of cosmic proportions or
fables of woodland creatures stories had
a profound influence on the way that i
thought
and i made plenty of my own stories as
well i sometimes just get lost in these
stories always trying to pull some of
the best aspects of
from the of them back into my real life
as stories truly shaped how i thought as
a child it only made sense that when i
nearly died i would
turn to them for guidance and dealing
with struggles i just couldn’t quite
figure out
but i always wondered why why was these
stories whether they came from popular
culture
or daydreams helped motivate me had such
an influence on my life
an article from psychodynamic practice
investigates just how audio-visual
mediums such as film
television and video games could affect
how the mind operates and deals with
reality
during psychoanalysis therapists noticed
that many of the ideas presented in
these fictional realities came up
frequently
and they begin to delve in all sorts of
details of the patient seiken its
relationship to pop culture narratives
therapists notice that much of the
content in this entertainment material
was being used by their patients to help
them deal with the world around them
now our minds predominantly operate
visually so when pop culture content
which is primarily visual
makes its way into our lives it can have
a profound influence on the way that we
think
and this is especially true for children
who would
maybe like myself who would pull bits
and pieces from the stories around them
and
they also think and dream in more visual
ways
now when i almost died i was distraught
sad and
scared of the future but instead of
reinforcing those bad thoughts with
more bad thoughts i look to more
inspiring stories just like that video
game
and i told myself my own stories as well
the story of my life and
how i would move forward from what
happened to me i
told myself stories when i would get out
of bed
i would use my family and friends for
support i’d
go back to high school sooner than
people would think
i’d keep trying for scholarships i’d
graduate high school with good grades
i’d go to college and most importantly
i’d have a good life
now i wasn’t necessarily telling myself
stories where and i felt like i was
captain america and i was just whacking
people with a shield
no i was using these stories as a
reminder a reinforcer of the thoughts
that i needed to have
if i ever wanted to pull myself out of a
mental right it’s like how they say
surround yourself with people you aspire
to be like well the same holds true for
stories as well
you must invite stories into your life
that parallel ideas or lessons that you
want to incorporate into your own
and this idea this concept of taking in
all these ideas and stories and
using them in your daily reality this is
a process that’s known as positive
constructive daydreaming
positive constructive daydreaming is
essentially all the internal content
that you manifest yourself
that benefits your way of thinking
according to an article from frontiers
in psychology
positive constructive daydreaming has
the potential to alter the mind towards
certain positive functions
of those there are four key ones which
include future planning
creativity attention cycling and dish
habituation
future planning entails periods of
self-reflection but can be severely
stunted by just
general unhappy moods creativity
involves
problem solving and incubating your
thoughts essentially learning from
failure in order to move forward with
your goals
attention cycling aims to advance your
way of thinking by rotating through
various streams of thought
think of it like tuning into a different
radio station to get a different type of
music
and this habituation which aims to
advance your performance on a task by
taking short breaks
now these constructive functions that
are derived from positive constructive
daydreaming
showcase the power that stories can have
on our minds
but how exactly do we constructively
daydream in a way that is both
positive and meaningful to our lives
well
dr sereni pile a harvard trained
psychiatrist explains in his book
tinker dabble doodle try just how to go
about doing that
first and foremost you should set out a
time to daydream to avoiding
getting distracted or unrested during
your mental expedition
focus on your internal dialogue and
reduce those distractions around you
maybe simply by closing your eyes or
moving to a calmer environment
try and do a simple task that doesn’t
use all too much brain power
or simply do not nothing at all if that
works better
and try to understand that the mind may
try and resist this daydreaming process
but
take it one step at a time relax and let
your mind guide you towards your
daydreaming goals
it’s with knowing how to utilize this
positive constructive daydream process
that you can begin to utilize the power
of stories for the betterment of your
life
to give you an example of this when i
went to the theater a few years ago to
see the movie bohemian rhapsody the
story of the famous singer freddie
mercury i took a great deal from it
from the actor’s portrayal i saw the
passion who craft freddie mercury had is
presence on stage and his ability to
captivate not only a live audience
but nearly the entire world and that
resonated powerfully with me
from this i learned sort of
actions things i could incorporate back
in my real life such as
how to give a speech with a bit more
character or how to walk with more
confidence
and the story of freddie mercury
ultimately made its way into my
constructive daydreams
and my life
another story that had a profound impact
on me was one that i read when i was in
middle school
it was called the giver the giver told
the story of a young boy who lived in a
dystopian society
devoid of all the memories that made the
world itself
and these were things such as music
art the feeling on a cool summer day or
the
harsh pain of a sunburn the boy
eventually learned of all these
memories shielded away from society and
left his own to find a better one
this gave a younger more timid version
of myself the hearty spirit to learn all
that i could about the world around me
and of course there’s a story of a game
called dead cells
which reminded me i have a lot of life
left in me and i need to keep pushing
and fighting for the life that i want
it’s with all these stories that i’m
just captivated by copious amounts of
ideas and
lessons that i can bring back into my
real life because
after nearly dying i want to live i
want to experience all that the world
has to offer and make my life
one to remember when they tell stories
about years to come
there’s a man by the name of ervin yolom
an american psychiatrist who once said
someday soon perhaps in 40 years there
will be no one alive who has ever known
me
that is when i will truly be dead when i
exist in no one’s memory
i thought a lot about how someone very
old is the last living individual
to have known some person or cluster of
people
when that person dies the whole cluster
dies too
vanishes from the holy memory i wonder
who that person will be for me
whose death will make me truly dead
now it’s inevitable that one day we will
all die
but it’s by knowing how to utilize the
stories all around us that we all make
ourselves
implementing them through positive
constructive daydreams that we can make
our story
and our lives want to remember one
they’ll certainly talk about
years to come thank you
you