Story
James lifted all the couch cushions again, peering under them for his favorite book, but listlessly. He’d checked the couch — his bedroom — his bathroom — his backpack — at least five times this morning. But he wanted his copy of Beyond the Stars: an obscure space opera from the sixties filled with dog-eared pages and scribbled notes. He’d reread it several times a year since he was ten.
He was almost sure of what had really happened: he’d taken it to coffee with a friend and left it at the shop. The staff said there were no books in their Lost and Found, so someone must have taken it. Or thrown it away.
He slumped onto the couch, mind spiraling. It’s not just a book. It’s memories. It was long since out of print; copies on Amazon were going for $300, and they wouldn’t have his notes, or his girlfriend’s doodles of the different kinds of aliens in the margins (she claimed the story was campy but adorable; rationally, he supposed she was right, but right now he wanted to relive that world so much he almost cried.)
After a while, he took a deep breath. He realized his sadness didn’t have to be “solved” by finding the book. Sadness was something he had experienced many times before in his life. Each time he had been sad, the sadness had always changed, eventually. Sadness was transient. I feel terrible that I lost my book because I am sad. This new awareness opened a door in his mind.
Instead of frantically searching, he allowed himself to feel the sadness fully. He remembered the stories that had touched him, the adventures that had unfolded within those pages. With a gentle smile, he picked up a notebook instead. He made a few notes about the tales he loved most and the ideas they gave him — then remembered a few ideas of his own, set in the same universe. He scribbled down the beginning of a story. In that moment, he found a new narrative—one where loss transformed into creativity, and the absence of the book became an invitation to explore his own stories.
Analysis
I suggest that one reason sink states are limited is that they come with unpleasant narratives – coherent (or incoherent) stories that suggest that effort won’t be rewarded.
These narratives are often related to states that are outside the Default Human Range (DHR), and are in the Learned Layers (LL) or in the Default Human Range of Stressors (DHRS). I suggest that when James loses his book, he is experiencing something in the DHRS – something that hunter gatherers wouldn’t have dealt with as often, but that would have been a serious problem: the loss of an irreplaceable object. Humans today live in big houses with piles of precious objects, and we lose objects all the time. This can be stressful. If a hunter gatherer lost an object, it could be a significant problem – they might have left it behind at the last campsite; it is irretrievable. An object might have taken a great deal of time to construct. At the same time, it might not have happened quite as often – compared to us, they just didn’t own that much stuff. Therefore, losing objects is a significant stress for modern humans, because it reminds us of a time when losing objects was rare and very serious.
In James’ case, the anxious emotion is associated with a narrative about losing the object – and about the futility of effort. The book is out of print; it costs $300 on Amazon; it contains his girlfriend’s doodles – it’s irreplaceable. From this perspective, no effort can matter.
A common trait of many nexus states is that they are mentalizing and aware – that is, they are able to explain your self states in words – but in a positive way. This mentalizing lets go of any unhelpful narrative associated with the particular state. It denarrativizes or renarrativizes the state. Hunter gatherers would have used language in discussion with other humans in order to narrativize their mental state, just as we do. They also sought to find meaning in their everyday activities. This might explain why narratives are crucial for us.
For example, James is sad because he cannot find his favorite book. In this sad state, his narrative is “it’s so terrible that I lost my book.” But by becoming aware of his sadness, his narrative shifts to a nexus state’s narrative: “I feel terrible that I lost my book because I am sad.” James is following an Awareness of Emotion arrow to reach a nexus state. In this nexus state, James recognizes that effort can matter, because the issue is not the book (which may indeed be irreplaceable) but rather the sadness. Should James struggle against the sadness – or accept it? These are both efforts that James can take. Eventually, James makes a further effort (writing in a notebook).
Once James is aware of this new narrative, he can access new emotional resources. He may have knowledge about how to deal with sadness. Additionally, he does not have to assume that finding the book is the only solution to his problem. For this to work, the nexus state’s narrative (“I am sad”) must convince him that it explains the meaning of the peripheral state’s narrative (“It is terrible”) showing why he can let go of that narrative.
Likewise, the Reason arrow can denarrativize a state via cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, via acknowledging that a certain narrative involved all-or-nothing thinking. James might be thinking that life is either wonderful (with his book) or terrible (without his book). But what if the truth is somewhere in between? Hunter gatherers were rational beings well before the European enlightenment, as David Graeber and David Wengrow argue in The Dawn of Everything. Thus, rational states are DHR states.
As another example, mindfulness meditation can denarrativize your state by deliberately letting go of thoughts without fighting them.
Vocabulary
- Narrative: a set of thoughts, emotions, interpretations, and actions that limits our possible states.
- Mentalizing: explaining our state in words.
- Denarrativize: to remove the narrative from a state (e.g. to stop ruminating or to let go of a particular interpretation).
- Renarrativize: to remove the narrative from a state and supply a new narrative.
Nexus State Theory 