Why do we tell stories?
Yeah, yeah, I know: To make sense of the world, to preserve our culture and heritage, to explain what we could be. There are lots of reasons, and a lot of them also make sense (which is nice), but I've been thinking a lot about stories lately.
Maybe it's because it's late but I'm worried the insomnia that's been plaguing me the last three nights is lurking behind me; maybe it's because my own sense of self-worth and legacy resides in twenty-six fragile letters, pushed back and forth on my keyboard millions of times and my stories remain almost entirely unread; maybe it's because the late July night outside of my now-open window is cooler than July usually is, and that feels like a detail that ought to be remembered somehow, if even in a nebulous, digital way. Maybe there are more reasons for telling stories than there are stories to be told, or maybe because there are really only a handful of each, but the veneer is different enough that we trick ourselves into believing that isn't the case.
I've been swimming in stories lately, trying to drink the ocean of ideas and characters. The Blizzard universe has been tugging at me ever since I visited my friend's work. There's depth, texture, thoughtfulness, and bizarre, difficult to pronounce names that intrigue me. I'm almost 300 pages into It, a departure from my typical fare. (No, my insomnia isn't related to that book. It's had a couple of creepy moments, but King spends a lot of time getting into the lives of the characters that his villain is going to torment, so the big scares haven't happened yet. Also, the book is, like, 1,400 pages, so it's not like I'm very deep into it. Lol. Deep into It.) I'm desperate for some Hulk comics, I just rewatched the film, I knocked out a rewatch of Avengers: Age of Ultron, and I'm feeling typical writer's guilt that I'm not putting down words in a new story. I'm watching YouTube videos about the way stories are told visually, looking at plot structures and character motivations in new ways. I finished listening to Nos4a2 by Joe Hill (not particularly scary, but plenty of swears and gruesome moments, if you're into that sort of thing). I'm pointedly ignoring Don Quixote because I'm a slacker and a malaise comes over me whenever I think of how I need to read that book. I have at least fifteen different books that I'm reading--some are non-fiction, but most aren't. In short, I can't escape the pull of narrative.
Maybe it's because life seems so horrible right now. Not personally--at least, nothing worse than my typical swings of depression can justify. Summertime is a fantastic time for me, a chance to relax and make memories and accomplish days where I hang out with my brother at his house for hours and play Hearthstone just because we both have the time. No, it's the broader stuff. The political stuff that is nauseating and terrifying and makes me wonder if there's even going to be a world for my children to inherit. As I write this, the Senate barely failed to pass a repeal of the ACA, which protects my 10 year old from losing insurance later in his life because of the preexisting condition of his heart missing the right side of it. In other words, there are men who wish to strip my son from potential coverage because a Black man had the audacity of hoping to make lives better for Americans at the cost of a few dollars.
Icebergs as big as some states are falling into the ocean. White supremacy, neo-Nazism, and a growing acceptance of fascism continue. Minorities continue to be targeted by bigotry and hatred.
Maybe that's why I want stories. There's an ending to the suffering on the page, and sometimes it's victory, sometimes it's failure--sometimes it's bitter, sometimes it's sweet, but it's an end. There's a final paragraph, a final sentence, a final word, and then silence. The misery or mercy of the page concludes. But the insanity of the world won't wind up with words. A government that has been in constant crisis for the last six months, yet has had no true crises to deal with, is demonstrating a patent inability to do what's necessary or what's best.
Little wonder I'm so into superheroes right now.
Little wonder I'm reading horror. At least they can confront the demon.
I used to dismiss the arguments about why we "need" escapism--or that escapism even exists. On the second point first, I still think that even pure a "cotton candy" read, like, say, Captain Underpants, is still saying something worth hearing for its audience (namely, that children aren't completely powerless, that grown-ups are imperfect, and their imperfection is seen and sometimes resented by those over whom they exercise their power). There's no such thing as apolitical art, nor stories that can't be tied back to what we are as people. But that's why the first point is cracking to me: Maybe we need that untethering of our world--that distance that much of fiction provides--in order to better face the mess we have in our reality.
Stories mollify us. They tell us how things work (science), why things happen (history), what things mean (humanities), how we can improve (fiction), and how to see ourselves in the universe (religion). Maybe Marx's quip about religions isn't about religion but about stories.
I've now watched dozens of hours of superhero films, and I'm convinced of a couple of things: 1) There is something deep inside of us that we want and superheroes embody. Perhaps it's the nobility of standing up against an overwhelming force. Maybe it's the recognition that with great power there must also come great responsibility. Or maybe we just like seeing the fragile person body-check a tank--and win. (For me, that last one is a big part of it.) But it seems like these stories are those which we've chosen to tell each other because it gives us something to appreciate, something to acknowledge, something to--in its own way--aspire to. And 2) I should have become a computer animator who created dust particles. I would have had so much job security.
But these are only broad strokes. What else do these stories tell us? Violence is one part of it. How much we absorb in the name of action is alarming, when I reflect upon it. I wouldn't argue that I'm more violent because of how many superhero movies I've seen--I'm able to parse reality from fiction pretty well--but, in retrospect, I've seen a lot of destruction, a lot of suffering, a lot of pain, and a lot of death in the form of the stories that I've absorbed.
This, however, is hardly new. Our Western tradition is built upon rage and violence. The Iliad, the foundational text for the West, has hundreds of deaths, the swirl of darkness that plucks one character after another and sends them to their eternity. We revel in our victories, then tell ourselves story after story about imaginary battles where the heroes are those who prevail.
This isn't just secular, either: The verbiage of religion is hardly bereft of violence as a rallying point. I'm not speaking of mujahideen, though they fit this paradigm, too. Violence of oppression is still alive and well in this country, but violent metaphors fill the ears of those in the pews, too. Phrases like "fighting for your soul" or "putting on the armor of God" invoke violence, too. "We're in a literal fight against evil, brothers and sisters," more than one speaker has crooned. "The Prince of Peace.../Who brought a sword."
The Greatest Story Ever Told--the story of Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection--rests upon His violent death, His promises of wresting the world from the wicked, His triumphal return that will come about because of...war. Death. Destruction.
Maybe we tell stories because we think they are from the past, but really, they are our prophecies of the future.
Yeah, yeah, I know: To make sense of the world, to preserve our culture and heritage, to explain what we could be. There are lots of reasons, and a lot of them also make sense (which is nice), but I've been thinking a lot about stories lately.
Maybe it's because it's late but I'm worried the insomnia that's been plaguing me the last three nights is lurking behind me; maybe it's because my own sense of self-worth and legacy resides in twenty-six fragile letters, pushed back and forth on my keyboard millions of times and my stories remain almost entirely unread; maybe it's because the late July night outside of my now-open window is cooler than July usually is, and that feels like a detail that ought to be remembered somehow, if even in a nebulous, digital way. Maybe there are more reasons for telling stories than there are stories to be told, or maybe because there are really only a handful of each, but the veneer is different enough that we trick ourselves into believing that isn't the case.
I've been swimming in stories lately, trying to drink the ocean of ideas and characters. The Blizzard universe has been tugging at me ever since I visited my friend's work. There's depth, texture, thoughtfulness, and bizarre, difficult to pronounce names that intrigue me. I'm almost 300 pages into It, a departure from my typical fare. (No, my insomnia isn't related to that book. It's had a couple of creepy moments, but King spends a lot of time getting into the lives of the characters that his villain is going to torment, so the big scares haven't happened yet. Also, the book is, like, 1,400 pages, so it's not like I'm very deep into it. Lol. Deep into It.) I'm desperate for some Hulk comics, I just rewatched the film, I knocked out a rewatch of Avengers: Age of Ultron, and I'm feeling typical writer's guilt that I'm not putting down words in a new story. I'm watching YouTube videos about the way stories are told visually, looking at plot structures and character motivations in new ways. I finished listening to Nos4a2 by Joe Hill (not particularly scary, but plenty of swears and gruesome moments, if you're into that sort of thing). I'm pointedly ignoring Don Quixote because I'm a slacker and a malaise comes over me whenever I think of how I need to read that book. I have at least fifteen different books that I'm reading--some are non-fiction, but most aren't. In short, I can't escape the pull of narrative.
Maybe it's because life seems so horrible right now. Not personally--at least, nothing worse than my typical swings of depression can justify. Summertime is a fantastic time for me, a chance to relax and make memories and accomplish days where I hang out with my brother at his house for hours and play Hearthstone just because we both have the time. No, it's the broader stuff. The political stuff that is nauseating and terrifying and makes me wonder if there's even going to be a world for my children to inherit. As I write this, the Senate barely failed to pass a repeal of the ACA, which protects my 10 year old from losing insurance later in his life because of the preexisting condition of his heart missing the right side of it. In other words, there are men who wish to strip my son from potential coverage because a Black man had the audacity of hoping to make lives better for Americans at the cost of a few dollars.
Icebergs as big as some states are falling into the ocean. White supremacy, neo-Nazism, and a growing acceptance of fascism continue. Minorities continue to be targeted by bigotry and hatred.
Maybe that's why I want stories. There's an ending to the suffering on the page, and sometimes it's victory, sometimes it's failure--sometimes it's bitter, sometimes it's sweet, but it's an end. There's a final paragraph, a final sentence, a final word, and then silence. The misery or mercy of the page concludes. But the insanity of the world won't wind up with words. A government that has been in constant crisis for the last six months, yet has had no true crises to deal with, is demonstrating a patent inability to do what's necessary or what's best.
Little wonder I'm so into superheroes right now.
Little wonder I'm reading horror. At least they can confront the demon.
I used to dismiss the arguments about why we "need" escapism--or that escapism even exists. On the second point first, I still think that even pure a "cotton candy" read, like, say, Captain Underpants, is still saying something worth hearing for its audience (namely, that children aren't completely powerless, that grown-ups are imperfect, and their imperfection is seen and sometimes resented by those over whom they exercise their power). There's no such thing as apolitical art, nor stories that can't be tied back to what we are as people. But that's why the first point is cracking to me: Maybe we need that untethering of our world--that distance that much of fiction provides--in order to better face the mess we have in our reality.
Stories mollify us. They tell us how things work (science), why things happen (history), what things mean (humanities), how we can improve (fiction), and how to see ourselves in the universe (religion). Maybe Marx's quip about religions isn't about religion but about stories.
I've now watched dozens of hours of superhero films, and I'm convinced of a couple of things: 1) There is something deep inside of us that we want and superheroes embody. Perhaps it's the nobility of standing up against an overwhelming force. Maybe it's the recognition that with great power there must also come great responsibility. Or maybe we just like seeing the fragile person body-check a tank--and win. (For me, that last one is a big part of it.) But it seems like these stories are those which we've chosen to tell each other because it gives us something to appreciate, something to acknowledge, something to--in its own way--aspire to. And 2) I should have become a computer animator who created dust particles. I would have had so much job security.
But these are only broad strokes. What else do these stories tell us? Violence is one part of it. How much we absorb in the name of action is alarming, when I reflect upon it. I wouldn't argue that I'm more violent because of how many superhero movies I've seen--I'm able to parse reality from fiction pretty well--but, in retrospect, I've seen a lot of destruction, a lot of suffering, a lot of pain, and a lot of death in the form of the stories that I've absorbed.
This, however, is hardly new. Our Western tradition is built upon rage and violence. The Iliad, the foundational text for the West, has hundreds of deaths, the swirl of darkness that plucks one character after another and sends them to their eternity. We revel in our victories, then tell ourselves story after story about imaginary battles where the heroes are those who prevail.
This isn't just secular, either: The verbiage of religion is hardly bereft of violence as a rallying point. I'm not speaking of mujahideen, though they fit this paradigm, too. Violence of oppression is still alive and well in this country, but violent metaphors fill the ears of those in the pews, too. Phrases like "fighting for your soul" or "putting on the armor of God" invoke violence, too. "We're in a literal fight against evil, brothers and sisters," more than one speaker has crooned. "The Prince of Peace.../Who brought a sword."
The Greatest Story Ever Told--the story of Jesus' birth, life, death, and resurrection--rests upon His violent death, His promises of wresting the world from the wicked, His triumphal return that will come about because of...war. Death. Destruction.
Maybe we tell stories because we think they are from the past, but really, they are our prophecies of the future.