The Metastory is, first and foremost, a book. It is a book that I am writing, but it is also a kind of book that cannot be defined exclusively by its physical dimensions or the words within it. It is, in some sense, more properly defined by the white space that frames the letters. The subtitle of this blog is “all things defined by their exclusions.” My full intent in this phrase cannot be conveyed succinctly, but it is worth meditating on until fully rendered.
The author of this book is the partnership between you and I. For my part, what a given reader takes away from it exists only in suggestion. Every instance of readership will result in a unique expression of its potential because it is designed to be reckoned with, wrestled with, conversed with, and responded to. I don’t recommend using a pen on your computer screen, but I encourage the most extensive of commentary. I promise the print version will be generous in margins.
Any meaning generated by this interaction should be regarded not as something that “I” have offered to “you,” but rather an entity in itself, newborn, and in need of nurturing. Feed the ideas, and let them yearn and stretch into the world. Allow them to fulfill their potential. The walls of this book are will-o-wisps and they will lead you astray. Instead, if you find some insight, take it and run with it. Match it up against everything you believe that you know. This book is exponentially larger than it appears, on an asymptotic approach toward the infinite.
All stories are maps. They are an abridged and encoded version of some shred or shrapnel of the world. All we have are stories. In the moment of experience and observation, encoding has already taken place. The encoded infinitesimal moment of experience is the most primordial, fundamental language, and as language it is story. All stories are maps, but the map is not the territory. If all we have are maps, then what, if anything, is the territory? The territory is the abyss of Nietzsche and Derrida; the ineffable of Wittgenstein; the noumenon of Kant; the ideal form of Plato. It is the fully rendered fractal; the asymptote. It is, from a certain perspective, god. That particular label is inflammatory and controversial, however it is only a word. Just another map in our chart room.
The Metastory implies an infinitude. It is the collection of all possible maps, all possible stories. It is a map of the whole of all being. As such a thing is impossible in any sense, (for such a map must also be the territory it represents, at which point the whole world collapses in tautology), it must be understood that The Metastory is instead a map of the maps themselves. It is the card catalog to the infinite chart room. Borges is gleaming in his grave.
The Metastory is a training manual, of sorts. It is intended to instruct in a certain process of approach toward any subject — one that begins with the assumption that all subjects are intrinsically intertwined and can auspiciously inform one another. Because of this, I am confident that, in the right hands and properly applied, this book has the potential to yield deep insight and epiphany on literally any subject.
Therefore, the intended audience of this book are those interested in literally any subject. If you are excited by history, science, religion, philosophy, economics, language, culture, ecology, or anything else to be found in a course catalog at a university, then this book is for you. From the mainstream to the esoteric, the concepts found here are applicable to all things.
You may be asking, “how is this possible?” The answer has to do with how the book came about and how it was constructed. The answers to this will be found in my next post; a somewhat autobiographical account of the intent and basic premises that form the skeleton of the Metastory.
The Metastory 