This is Part 2 of "What Ariele's Been Thinking About Lately" or, in this case, "The Philosophy of Story" so if you missed part one, no problem! I posted it to my blog so just click here.

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Okay, so…

Last time I talked about the philosophy of story and how it filters down into my life in particular. But of course, it's one of those really big topics that doesn't just go away once I've thought about it for a little while.

The idea that everything is a story has a really deep impact, if you find yourself able to really believe the idea. And that impact can be dangerous, but it can also be freeing.

For example, if everything is a story, then that means the idea "killing people is wrong" is simply a story society and culture tells. It's a story I agree with, to be clear, but if someone else were to begin believing that it was a story--what happens if they don't agree with it? Do they start killing people? Do they begin justifying all kinds of terrible things?

But if you really think about it, even something that seems like it should be a given has gray areas. We have entire shows, movies, book series, and video games built around characters who have killed people wherein the story presents it as okay.

For example, in Bones, Booth was a sniper and now an FBI agent. We accept that the killing he does is okay. In NCIS, Gibbs killed a guy out of revenge, and it's presented as "a terrible thing Gibbs did for a good reason." The TV show Dexter is all about a guy who kills people who slip through the system--a vigilante murderer.

And think about books and movies like Lord of the Rings: the characters slaughter their way through the stories without even blinking. Legolas and Gimli have a competition for how many orcs they can kill! I personally have killed a lot of perfectly innocent fictional characters in video games. Full-fledged brotherhood assassin over here lol.

The catch is, in all of these stories, the people who are killed are portrayed as being "bad" people who cause far more harm than can ever be undone. Orcs are evil monsters created to wreak havoc on Middle Earth. In Dexter, Bones, NCIS, the main characters only kill people who have done terrible things. In fantasy books and movies, the characters have to kill because people are getting in the way of "the greater good."

So then, sometimes... killing is okay?

And that's just in fiction. In real life, we support our military and emergency personnel, even when they are put in positions where they have to kill people. We bomb other countries. We still have the death penalty. We refuse treatment plans for people with illnesses if their insurance company "doesn't think it's necessary." We all talk about how we would totally have killed Hitler if we had the opportunity.

But the point here is that the story "Killing people is wrong," is no longer an irrefutable truth. It's a story we tell to hopefully reduce the arbitrary killing that goes on. But the story is a lot more complicated than that. It's more like, "Killing people is wrong, except for..."

If we can look at a story like "killing is wrong" and find reasons why that story isn't entirely true, we can do the same for all kinds of things. We can question everything.

It's a can of worms, friend.

Does it matter if I mow my lawn every week?

Does my house have to be clean when people come over?

Does it make me a bad person if I... [insert thing someone told you not to do]?

On one hand, the process of questioning everything you've ever been told can be a bit destabilizing. It can be confusing. But it can also be freeing.

Do you know how many arbitrary rules there are? Take writing, for example. It's one occupation, one skillset, out of bajillions of skillsets. It's just one thing. And yet the rules...

Don't use adverbs.
Don't end a sentence with a proposition.
Don't use sentence fragments.
Don't use passive voice.
Don't use parenthesis.
Don't spell things wrong.
Don't use 5-cent words unless absolutely necessary.

Okay, I'll stop boring you with a list of writing rules I think are BS, lol. Just google "list of writing rules" and you'll find blog after blog telling you what you should and shouldn't do.

My point is--using adverbs is fine! Prepositions are an excellent thing to end sentences with! Sentences fragments? Fantastic. Passive voice is so useful. I love parenthesis (doesn't everyone?). Spelling is a made-up thing! And I will never say no to a gargantuan, ponderous, voluminous sesquipedalia.

What I'm not saying is that we should give up on every story we've ever heard, every rule we've ever believed, and every social norm that's ever been invented. Because in many cases, these social stories were created for a reason.

There's a reason why we say "Killing people is wrong."

What I am saying is that we don't have to be bound by these stories. We can (and arguably should) question everything. We can work to understand the "why" behind the stories we use to construct our lives. And we can figure out which stories we want to keep, which stories work for us, which stories make our lives better--and which stories don't.