[mmj48]

> This perspective that life is a narrative with upswings and downswings can itself be treacherous.

Is this not certainly true?

> Your life is not a prewritten narrative with defined story arcs.

It seems to be that someone could believe in the statement before this and not this.

[tptacek]

No? It's definitely not true? It's The Gambler's Fallacy?

[mmj48]

Ah, now I understand. You're saying that it's fallacious to believe that an upswing will necessarily have a downswing, and vice versa, is that correct?

What I understood (due to hastily coming to conclusions) was it is dangerous to believe that life has lows and highs.

[tripzilch]

That's right, but it's also important to realize that, in fact, there is no grand narrative[1].

Humans are compulsive pattern-recognizers and can turn any arbitrary independent sequence of events into a story.

That doesn't mean the story is wrong, per se, but it does mean you cannot presume to know where a story "is leading up to". Because the only "complete" story is the one that is told afterwards.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_narrative (lots of "blah" btw)

[mmj48]

Ah, yes, thank you for the explanation.