Lucy

wanderer

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

@lucaspatiri_ UGC

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

I thought of the 'story form' in mere tremblings of wakefulness
My reflection on the story form, how crucial it is for our consciousness
https://t.co/YeMguKb5M5

I’m currently obsessed with Elif Batuman, the writer of The Idiot (Pulitzer Prize finalist novel) and a really great Substack blog. Her works make me alert with amusement - what with her ways of writing about prosaic things - paving stones, dashunds, imperialism of China. And yet, managing to interweave a dictation of her daily life with rumination of philosophy. After I read her words. I feel a sense of coziness inside, which is all I really want. I savor individual sentences in her “fiction” (they’re somewhat autobiographical) works, which give me a clear feeling of delight, like a bell. For example:

“This is Owen,” I said. “He’s in Peter’s program.”

“Ivan,” said Ivan. The two of them clapped hands in a masculine, almost angry way.
A sense of amusement came up when I read the last sentence: “almost angry way”. I could imagine that through the forceful will to show bravado, men are blaming each other but not themselves for the patriarchy. And so on, her books go making me laugh.

Elif Batuman, among other authors I enjoy (ie. Sally Rooney), engage themselves with the concept of the novel - as a craft, art, and form. As authors they say things like (paraphrased): A novel is a cohesive representation of the evolution of the author’s thoughts over the course of the time in which they wrote. Or, the modern novel only came about during the 18th century and it informed the course of society, etc. At first when I listened, I was like “Yes, this aligns with my expectations of what a novel is and truly this fits into my understanding of reality.”

But recently I’ve begun to realize that they were referencing something MORE, which is the formalization of the story form that is found so presently in consciousness - of life itself practically. The authors, musing as artists with some sensitivity to beauty, must have had some deeper awareness of the significance of the story when they discussed the concept of the novel.

Here is my awakening to the power of the story.

I think of the story form as an intuition

Take a deep breath. Let it out.

Think about narrating a story to someone else. Reflect on the feeling you have, a sort of eloquence that makes you want to dress up the narrative to be something compelling.

On the flip side, think about comprehending a story. Your mind relaxing over the substance of it, feeling its nature - the tension, meaning, impact of it.

I’m sure that there are more intellectual and rigorous dissections of the story form (the way events are structured to be a story), but for the sake of this essay, I’m referencing the intuition.

Eloquence as a symptom of time

Let me start with talking about the concept of eloquence, because this is where my story starts.

I had written (in this blog post about what I was pondering while entering the new year of 2026(https://t.co/u1WErOkjPX)) that I was reflecting on: the function of eloquence to be the harmonious mapping of symbols in subjective experience (ie. words in a book or spoken conversation are symbols, music notes are symbols, etc.) to objectivity. The harmonious element being the relationships between symbols.

When thinking about the concept of the story form, I understood eloquence in its expression to be what gives story life. Eloquence is a byproduct of, as well as enforces, the story form.

Eloquence relies primarily on the subjective mindset. It’s the transcription for time’s rhythm. There is a beat to eloquence, an encode into your body where you then feel harmony.
My music teacher used to say that when you listened to music, you were keeping track of it using your heart beat. When you think about eloquence as something that relies on rhythm and phrasing, not unlike music - what then, does it mean, to follow your heart?

Eloquence, being from the deep immersion within a narrative mindset, a subjective frame, opens the story as a dependent of time, of which the nature is to reveal. It’s the flow, the expansion from the genesis, that creates substance from the negative space drawn by the mappings of the words or symbols when staked down. Intoxicating when induced.

There is a delicate beauty when eloquence enacts, like light shimmering in the water. Play.

We play to practice, to model things, to learn, to have joy in this world. The story then, being expressed through the playfulness of eloquence, takes on a dimensionality of meaning that could only be brought forth in this way.

I thought of this in the mere trembling of wakefulness

I tell the following to describe the impact thinking in the form of a story, compared to thinking in a simple sequential narrative, can make.

I have my best thoughts right when I’m about to fall asleep. I was reflecting on my emotions/feelings/energy as elements to tame, unruly as they were, when it occured to me that I should make a deliberate practice of ‘organizing’ my feelings/emotions/energy. Traditionally, in order to resolve myself, I usually have a good bout of sleep and food and thus everything became fine. Throw in a satisfying handbag shopping sesh in there. To be passive and accept my state as what it was seemed like the proper thing to do. But this wasn’t growth or healing. I wasn’t taking enough responsibility to be conscious about that.
There were several ideas of organizational processes that crossed my mind.

‘Making sense’ - this was too clinical and intellectual, I felt my breath taken away. ‘Making meaning’ - I could too easily lead myself to false perspectives and wrong conclusions. To be sensitive to the intuition of ‘making stories’ of myself on the other hand....felt right. It does the former two processes of making sense and making meaning, but does so in a way that is coherent and true to my humanity.

Making stories isn’t a new idea. In therapy talk - there’s terms like ‘narrative’ and ‘reframing’. But I had considered these tools to be cope. There was a time when it had seemed like the stories that were taught to me and told myself in order to resolve myself were false. I was aghast and decided that the way to understand what was true was to think more objectively - logically I assumed.

I understood nothing. It was all flat. I knew the sequence of concrete events that had happened and scried for clues as to what might explain how consequences came about. In the end, maybe I did have a clear and accurate idea of what had occurred, but I didn’t understand neither the why nor the how - I was blind to significance. Honestly, perhaps in a secret way, I had wanted to be ignorant, because I didn’t want to know something that might hurt me. The stripped sequential narrative was a reduction of the story form that resulted in a loss in noise, but yet, a negation in significance. This derealization was unsatisfying and non-beneficial for me - I didn’t get to play with different perspectives or heal from it. Over time, I grew weary and let cards lay where they lay.

When events become molded into a story, new meaning - and thus insights - come about. The story form has taken shape and mass in my mind, so that I ‘see’ it with some property of dimensionality. When I start to understand that events and information are stores, my understanding becomes more robust and at the same time, transcendent.

It’s stories (and turtles) all the way down
It’s an ontological experience, to frame my world as a series of stories which then, very rarely but still, induce shifts in being where reality takes on a sacred quality that feels crystal clear and reminiscent of my childhood. Scarce in number and amount of time passing, but reveal a reality where everything is bright.

My mind opened when I discovered the story form as pertinent to myself and I saw that the story form as a series of fractals. In my mind, there were stories unfurling, interacting with other stories and becoming part of a larger, more cohesive story. Stories were interacting below, beside, and above other stories. There was a ripple effect as the stories changed each other through a combination of strategies: reshaping themselves when new perspectives arise, reframing to include different facets, and reforming of new significance. Even with the same variables, there were infinite ways the main substance of a story could evolve to be a new one.

The story form when invoked becomes this organic structure that feels alive. I had wondered (same blog post linked above) about the connections between ideas being conversations. Perhaps stories are the vehicle for this process.

As humans evolved with the story form, so are they able to grasp the metaphysical. If people can feel closer to the workings of God through the system of mathematics, why not the through the story form? I feel more of an urge to read literature and actually, the Scripture and other religious texts, with the new awareness that my mind molded around the story form may be more receptive to metaphysical properties.

When I express a story through my body
Malcolm Gladwell, when writing a feature piece on Cesar Millan, The Dog Whisperer, calls eloquence in body language ‘phrasing’. Millan would organize and structure his physical self so that the meaning of it would be legible to the canine sort and get them to understand that Millan was the leader of the pack. Gladwell later explains that this is not unlike the body phrasing work great actors and orators do to make meaning clear to the audience during a performance.

Actually, when I applied the story form to myself, I was able to be more aware of my phrasing.

I’m in traffic, late to a meeting, and I bite my thumb. Reflecting on the story form, I ponder this micro action. What’s the meaning of this? It seems rather mindless like a child (though truth be told, I was at my most mindful then) and I’m not sure if there is any rhyme or reason to this action. Shall biting my thumb be part of the disorder of the universe I ordinarily contribute to as an individual? But I explore the story sensation in my body. I actually start to see that this simple movement, initially seemingly thoughtless, was actually part of a larger picture featuring me with youthful anxiety and a lack of self consciousness from being in my car alone. I could write about this moment as an asset to a narrative in a novel. A bite of the thumb wasn’t noise anymore, but rather a definite performance that had all these interesting connotations. Putting myself in story form, I felt the situation in higher fidelity - myself as the character, the car the environment, where I was coming from, and where I was going.

Conclusion
Thus, I became more sensitive to an objective understanding of myself. I became this person who was grounded to time and space, coherent with this internal motivation that allowed me to interact with this environment. Cohesively, this created meaning.

I’m still working on my personal eloquence - the ability to conduct my story in real time. Creating is so much harder than editing. Everything is clearer in retrospect. But with this newfound understanding, I sense the way my life is being woven into a narrative. I don’t just exist, I’m living my story.

[River Marchand @Riyvir]

“Pleasure was sold to me as something to deliberately make time and hold mental space for, not to integrate seamlessly within normality.” @fiatlucy

https://t.co/UwcmmW6Rag

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

@Riyvir @HuangWalterz @jameygannon @ridd_design @clairevo please release this! I’ll love to try it.

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

https://t.co/YrQqzYCcAC

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

When you’re a new writer, every piece of encouragement is cake to a starving person

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

@roving_sign

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

My friend once told me “Aesthetics has a connection to ethics” - and I’ve been pondering this ever since. We’re at a cafe together and struck up a conversation with a web designer. He showed her his favorite website.
Chat, it was Craigslist. He’s still in Plato’s cave.

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

let’s celebrate the time when in middle school I kept wearing a T shirt that said “Eat your heart out” in pink sparkles because I liked eating food and thought this was a great message to be a proponent of.

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

it turns out I have aphantasiac tendencies

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

I’m not sure how to frame this question - but how tactile is your soul searching

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

People talk about grug moids throwing them onto the bed but honestly an underrated primal longing I’ve seen from my guy was him standing over the bed watching me sleep hoping I’d wake up from his presence and play with him

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

some people only think when they're in fight or flight mode and it really shows

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

https://t.co/T4w9mSa0M2

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

I wrote a blog post on my philosophical journey to buy a handbag!

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

@yellieyana What is normal to confrontation? Eliana, you reacted aggressively to Russian bots calling you ugly

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

I'm a soft girly but in the way that I might accidentally join a cult

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

https://t.co/e5dBX9WMIM

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

Can someone tell me the algorithm for soul searching? I already tried Fibonacci Search

[Lucy @fiatlucy]

I was thinking of creating an app for zen koans so I did some studying into it. Now everything is a zen koan. Why did I write “I get easily confused by white foods” in my notes app in 2017? This feels like this can alter my sense of reality.