Xavier Zanzibar—XZ for short—went walking through the wilderness. As he pushed his way through the brambles and thickets, he could hear ignorant armies clashing in the thickets all around him.
XZ came to a meadow, in the middle of which he saw a stone. Upon the stone sat a philosopher. The philosopher was a cat, This cat was named Raoul.
XZ did what you do when you happen upon a philosopher in the woods. He posed a profound question. The only question, really:
“What the hell is going on around here?”
The philosopher said: “The answer lies in the narrative.”
“The narrative?” said XZ. “What narrative?”
“The one you’re in,” said Raoul. “Picture a cup containing tea to the halfway mark. You’ve probably heard the familiar truism: an optimist would say the cup is half full. A pessimist would say it’s half empty.
“Actually,” Raoul continued, “the key factor here isn’t whether the speaker is an optimist or a pessimist. The key question is whether the speaker is drinking tea or pouring tea. The key question has to do with time. Drinking tea and pouring tea are events that happen in time. If drinking tea is what’s happening, then the cup is half empty. If pouring tea is what’s happening, then the cup is half full.
“The level of tea in the cup is a feature of the present moment,” Raoul pontificated. “But the present is inevitably a moment in a story that began in the past and will unfold into the future. There is no present moment of which this is not true. Because you’re human, you live in a narrative. Correction: you live, like all humans, in a multitude of narratives. You cannot exist apart from the narratives you’re in. These narratives are stories you’re making up ongoingly with a bunch of other people. If you were not part of some narrative, your animal self would still be here; but the person you are would not exist.”
“I never knew cats could be so pedantic,” said XZ.
“I am not just a cat,” said Raoul. “I am also a philosopher. Not an academic philosopher, granted; but a philosopher all the same.”
That said, the philosopher tucked his paws under his chin and went to sleep on the sun-splashed stone.