Story is what we use to conjure order out of chaos.
We charm chaos into narratives that replicate and reflect established perceptions of reality.
Though it appears to be nothing but fragments, the world is in fact a unified field: of cities, thoughts, food, language, dreams, bodies, hopes, fears and passions. The unifying factor is story, the ongoing whisper we hear in our heads, the tale we tell ourselves, no more real than any other story, a play we imagine, a dream we dream.
What about the "crack that lets the light in"?
ReplyDeleteDelightful tendrils of 'chaos' often penetrate or even completely take over *my* narratives . . .
This one is beautiful.
ReplyDeleteI heard Joseph Boyden interviewed a while back and he talked about the difference between the native and western storytelling traditions. He said that Europeans tend to sort the world out into linear narratives, while natives tend to seek out circular narratives. I didn't know exactly what he meant by the idea of a story as circular, but it seemed right to me somehow -- and in fact, as I let the idea settle in the recesses of my mind, I found myself gradually letting go of the linear bias. Over time, my stories no longer struggled so hard to find life and my view of the world gained a stronger internal logic.
The idea of a story requiring a beginning a middle and an end can mess you up quite badly, I believe. The stories want to be told differently, and we should let them be.