No. 12 — Stories at War

We look at the same world and see vastly different things. One image means freedom of expression for some and moral decay for others. One sentence can be intended as a compliment and land as an insult

And across the world, people are killing each other over stories. Not only over land or power, but over narratives about who is right, who has been wronged, who deserves protection, who must be stopped, who must be avenged.

Two groups look at the same event and see entirely different realities. One calls it defense; the other calls it aggression. One calls it freedom; the other calls it decay. Each side certain. Each side convinced they have understood correctly.

It is a war of stories. And the most dangerous part is not that stories exist. It is that we believe them so completely that we are willing to risk our lives for them.

In every culture, there are inherited narratives — stories about historical wounds, about injustice that must never be forgotten, about enemies and heroes, about who “we” are and who “they” are. Pain travels through generations and hardens into identity. It becomes a second skin, always itchy, always on the verge of breaking open. Grief is woven into myth, and myth turns into moral certainty.

More often than not, we do not question these stories. We believe them — also because the people who passed them on to us are our family. Loyalty asks us to add our own chapter to the great book of pain.

These narratives tell us what to feel, what to defend, what to condemn. And because the pain beneath them was real, the story feels sacred. We cannot bypass the pain. We can only decide what we do with it.

In families, the scale is smaller, but the mechanism is the same. There is always some unresolved hurt — a sentence spoken years ago, a decision never forgiven, a silence that stretched too long. Over time, that hurt becomes a narrative.

I was treated unfairly.
I was not seen.
I had to carry everything.
You never understood me.

We repeat these stories and polish them. We gather allies at the dinner table. We strengthen our case.

But rarely is there one villain and one innocent victim. There are two people — sometimes more — each caught in their own limited angle of vision, each convinced they see clearly, each defending their version of truth.

And then there is me.

I see how easily I can spot the narrowness in others. How obvious it seems when someone is trapped in their own storyline, preparing arguments to perfection, waiting to be confirmed, to finally feel right.

And sometimes I catch myself doing the same.

When I am hurt, my mind goes to work. It constructs explanations, builds a case, searches for proof. The story feels true. It feels justified. It feels intelligent. But it is still a story — shaped by my limited perspective, filtered through my history, amplified by my pain.

We all see only a fraction. Yet we take ourselves terribly seriously. We defend our interpretations as if they were facts and confuse our thoughts with reality.

Do not blindly believe your own thoughts.

That sounds simple, almost obvious. But when we are in pain, it is nearly impossible. Pain grips us. It narrows perception. It makes distance feel like betrayal.

When we are hurting, our story is not just an idea. It is armor. It is protection. It is survival.

And it takes real resolve to sit still in that moment. To not immediately jump into action. To not send the lengthy voice message explaining my version. To let the emotion run wild inside — without letting it spill over onto the other person. Because once it crosses that line, it becomes the beginning of yet another cycle of fighting.

And so we cling to the story. We argue. We justify. We escalate.

From global conflicts to cultural divisions to family rifts — the pattern is the same: identification with a story, defense of that story, escalation of that defense.

The root of conflict is not that we have different perspectives. It is that we forget they are perspectives.

So what would it mean to loosen our grip?

Not to deny injustice. Not to silence anger. Not to pretend everything is relative. But to hold our stories with a little more skepticism. To admit: I may be seeing only a fraction. To allow the possibility that my certainty is incomplete.

And when pain rises — to do something far more difficult than arguing.

To sit.
To feel the hurt beneath the narrative.
To let it move through the body instead of straight into words.
To allow grief, disappointment, fear, shame — without immediately turning them into accusation.

Only when pain is felt can it soften. Only when it softens can we create distance. And in that distance, something shifts.

We are no longer entirely caught.

The story is still there — but it is no longer us. It is no longer reality. It is a lens we can choose to look through — or not.

When I look around, I see people move either into attack mode or into retreat at the state of the world. We ask what needs to be done, what we could do. And more often than not, that is the moment we are pulled into the next story — living through it with full emotional intensity, emerging exhausted, spent, rarely victorious.

Perhaps this is where our responsibility begins.

Not in winning the argument.
Not in perfecting the narrative.
But in noticing how easily we are drawn in.

In paying close attention to how stories try to hook us — how they promise certainty, righteousness, belonging.

And in choosing, sometimes, to sit with the feeling instead of turning it into ammunition.

This is not a grand solution to the conflicts of the world. But it may be the only place where change is actually possible.

In the space between feeling and reacting.
In the courage to question our own certainty.
In loosening our identification with the story — even when it feels most true.

Questions to sit with

• Where am I currently caught in a story that feels unquestionably true?
• What emotion is underneath that story — and have I actually allowed myself to feel it?
• What might shift if I treated my certainty with a little more skepticism?