Vietnam Diaries (Day 11): The Stories We Choose To Tell

Typhoon Jenny which was supposed to hit the Philippines Coast turned towards North Vietnam and China. While Hue is away from its path, it has led to non-stop rains for the last 15 hours. Initially, I was a bit disappointed about the weather playing spoilsport.  Given I had little time in the town, I didn't want to spend it sitting in my room. 

Leveraging all my experience of dealing with the Mumbai Rains, I spent much of the morning visiting the Imperial Citadel and the tomb of Tự Đức the longest-serving emperor of the Nguyễn dynasty. In hindsight, it worked well in my favor given many travelers chose to stay indoors. Besides, rains have the magical quality to drown all the ambient noise, almost providing a background score to your travel. The only downside was not being able to use my camera to click photographs. 

The rain didn't go away but didn't keep the fun at bay either

As I was reading about the stories of the different emperors, I was reminded of about the following quote about history itself by Yuval Harari from Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind - 

“History cannot be explained deterministically and it cannot be predicted because it is chaotic. So many forces are at work and their interactions are so complex that extremely small variations in the strength of the forces and the way they interact produce huge differences in outcomes. Not only that, but history is what is called a ‘level two’ chaotic system. Chaotic systems come in two shapes. Level one chaos is chaos that does not react to predictions about it. The weather, for example, is a level one chaotic system. Though it is influenced by myriad factors, we can build computer models that take more and more of them into consideration, and produce better and better weather forecasts. Level two chaos is chaos that reacts to predictions about it, and therefore can never be predicted accurately. Markets, for example, are a level two chaotic system. What will happen if we develop a computer program that forecasts with 100 per cent accuracy the price of oil tomorrow? The price of oil will immediately react to the forecast, which would consequently fail to materialise. If the current price of oil is $90 a barrel, and the infallible computer program predicts that tomorrow it will be $100, traders will rush to buy oil so that they can profit from the predicted price rise. As a result, the price will shoot up to $100 a barrel today rather than tomorrow. Then what will happen tomorrow? Nobody knows.” 

Given the Level Two Chaos, history can explain how things happened but it is almost impossible for it to accurately define why things happened.  And as a result, unless history is observed from its primary sources or multiple contradictory sources,  one almost always sees a single perspective of it. Often, it is the perspective biased towards the preference of the one sharing it. For example, any museum in Europe generally amplifies Nazi atrocities but talks little about the destruction and damage caused by colonialism. Similarly, any museum in Vietnam celebrates the Vietnamese struggles and eventual victory in the war but does not talk about the poverty the country plunged into due to communism coupled with corruption.  And in India, attempts are made by every government to re-write textbooks to propagate stories that further their party philosophies, with most people, including me, not knowing our actual history post-independence. 

There is much power in the stories we choose to tell. They can be the source of revolution or subjugation. They can inspire or stoke fear in the hearts of people. They can lead to ownership or helplessness in the face of a struggle. 

If you are too bored to use words, you can leave behind grandiose temples.

Such an impact is felt not just due to stories about nations, about cultures but also felt due to everyday stories we tell about ourselves. Tell them frequently enough and they start becoming true. Can you tell the difference in the following narratives? 

• After a bad exam, do you say "I am terrible at studies" vs. "I had a bad Math paper today"?
• After an argument with colleagues, do you say "Nobody likes me" vs. "I didn't think through my argument well"?
• After bursting out in anger with your loved ones, do you say "I lack self-control" vs. "I have become stressed and thus get angrier"?

Like Dumbledore said, "Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic, capable of both inflicting injury and remedying it." Are you leveraging them as a force for good for yourself and your community? 

Since Tự Đức didn't have children of his own, he wrote his own epitaph on a stele.