Rick And Morty And Story-telling Gold

[TJ Reeves]

I recently struck gold during my research on how to write. Specifically, I found a free E-Course by Dan Harmon on how he structures his stories. 

But before I go into that, I want to start by emphasizing that story is central to human understanding. Everything you have ever known fits into a web of beliefs through story. Your entire ego is itself a structure of stories you have of your life.

We could spend all day trying to get rid of both our limitations and our stories one by one. But the truth is that that will never happen as long as we are still partaking in this dreamed reality. The story of your Life goes infinitely far back, for you have to consider the context for the context for the context within you were born. And even if you do become enlightened you will still have a story for how you did it. More specifically, if you have experienced death and are 'hollow' inside, you still have a story about how it is that you faced death and why it is that such experience might help you or hurt you. You might convince yourself that you don't follow any stories, but that itself is a story. At best then, its better make friends with our stories and not be a slave to them rather than 'get rid of' them. 

So, if you control your story you control your life.

Put another way, story is the central determinant of Grit. And Grit is the central determinant of your ability to thrive spiritually and practically. The Navy seals who get past Hell week do so because of their ability to own their personal stories. Those who don’t quit. The same thing goes for Nazi Prisoners who survived. If you make yourself believe a Gritty Story about yourself, you will all of the sudden become super powered.

Further, your ability to communicate is dependent on your ability to tell ideas through story. Every date, interview, or piece of info you give to others fits into a grand narrative. How well you demonstrate your view of the narrative determines how well others understand your view point and work with you. So again, nail your story-telling in order to nail down your relationships.

Now that I’ve talked about the importance of Story, I want to introduce you to Rick and Morty.

Rick and Morty is a show that explores deep-level philosophical topics through science-fiction and dark comedy. I personally think that Rick and Morty is required watching for coming close to understanding some of the latest concepts discussed by @Leo Gura, especially for those who have yet to make the important leap of personal retreats and/or trying psychedelics. Nothing is a replacement for direct experience and direct experience requires a quantum leap, but at the very least some materials can make that leap smaller. 

Rick and Morty is what happens when you mix discussions of Absolute Infinity with South Park. And they basically nail everything on the head. Where Flatland demonstrated how the 4th dimension works, Rick and Morty shows you a glimpse of what Absolute Infinity looks like and just how crazy things get when you talk about such infinity. 

I have two issues with the show. The first one is that they don't state outright is that everything takes place in Consciousness/Buddha-Mind. The other issue is that the show can have a depressive bent: just because the universe is meaning-less does not mean it has less-meaning. Existentialism and nihilism represents a mind that has trouble grasping the beauty and glory of Absolute Infinity. 

The show's creator, Dan Harmon is a genius who’s clearly woke as fuck despite not being prototypically ‘enlightened’.

In other words, he’s a cartoonist version of the types of Western Thinkers Leo discussed in Part 2 of the Understanding Absolute Infinity series. Just like some of the people Leo discussed, Harmon has come close to describing that which is not actually describable. 

"When you feel that mental breakdown happening, that means you're about to get smarter. You're growing. You're inheriting the universe. You're becoming closer and closer to a thing called "God," and "you're gonna get through this. You're gonna get trough this." It's like when you have a bad trip on mushrooms or acid, your friend who says, "This is cool. This is normal. Even though the walls are talking to you. You just need some orange slices. You need to get through this, and it's important that this is happening. It's giving you perspective." Otherwise you'd just be like, "This is insane, so I'm insane, so nothing matters, so I think I'll go do something horrible in public." - Dan Harmon

Its pretty amazing that Rick and Morty is so popular despite it’s deep topics. It shows that the world is ready to make a shift to another tier of conceptual thinking.  Harmon would have gotten ostracized and/or killed for most if not all of the ideas he presents on the Show, let alone having done so on a major network at any other point in history. But today he’s celebrated as one of the best cartoonists alive. 

None of this would have happened if Harmon did not have a near-religious zeal for the art of story telling. He lists Joseph Campbell as an early influence and demonstrates a immense understanding of the placement of plot twists. The fact that Rick and Morty has a 100% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes further demonstrates his story telling abilities. So does the fact that his previous show Community is a cult classic.

"When you realize that something is important, really important, to the point where it's more important than YOU, you gain full control over your destiny. In the first half of the circle, you were reacting to the forces of the universe, adapting, changing, seeking. Now you have BECOME the universe. You have become that which makes things happen. You have become a living God." - Dan Harmon

For all of that, it’s unbelievable that he wrote an entire free course for storytelling and posted it onto a near-unheard-of wiki page. His course is simple, concise, and profound. Each sentence carries deep meaning that goes far beyond how to make cartoons. If you read between the lines, there is a ton of insight to be had.

Again, I cannot emphasize this enough: read between the lines of what he’s discussing and apply it to your own insights.

Start here to see a video of how Harmon structures his stories

Then click here to begin Harmon’s story-telling course

Edited July 27, 2017 by TJ Reeves

[Dogsbestfriend]

Just wanted to pop in and say I really love this show.

[Arman]

Thanks for the write-up and for sharing his story telling course, I'm excited to read it. I love Dan Harmon, the dude is hilarious. The documentary 'Harmontown' is a lot of fun. Not super deep but is a nice exploration of vulnerability. 

[harisankartj]

This was really well written . i knew that story telling enriches our lives but damn...

[Gavalanche]

Not sure what to make of the fact that I went from browsing Actualized.org content, to watching the latest episode of Rick & Morty, then a 3 minute video of Dan Harmon discussing the philosophy of the show, then googling if Dan Harmon was enlightened, then finding myself back on Actualized.org looking at this thread 

Thanks for the resources!