Story-telling Animals

“Unpredictability and teleology therefore coexist as part of our lives; like characters in a fictional narrative we do not know what will happen next, but none the less our lives have a certain form which projects itself towards our future. Thus the narratives which we live out have both an unpredictable and a partially teleological character.” (pg 2)

This passage is saying that one specific aspect of persons as the subject of a narrative is our unpredictability and our ability to reach and try to achieve goals. Just as characters in a book must have a goal so must a person. In this sense a life is a lot like a book because it is unknown what the next page will bring just as we can never know what tomorrow will bring. A protagonist in a story must also have an object in order to create a story just as we must in order to build narrative in our lives and have personal identity.

The reason I believe this to be significant to ones identity is because in the overarching theme of my life, it has been a series of events that were not in my plan. I think the best example of this has to be the narrative I’m currently living in. There has been nothing more unexpected than this quarantine. I had a stable job before this quarantine and now my hours are no longer stable, which creates a riff in my schedule for the week. Also from week to week, we all don’t know when this will end. We have an end date but it continues to change. We have to continue to put our lives on hold. At this part of the narrative is where the teleology enters. This quarantine has an objective. The objective is to stop the spread of a virus and save as many lives as possible. My goal in this narrative is to survive to the end. The unpredictability and a stories need for a goal has never been better exemplified than our current times. I would also like to add that this adds to the global narrative. MacIntyre notes that our narratives are but part of one intertwining unified narrative. The whole world is currently experiencing the same story for the same purpose.

(380 Words)