Language allowed us to meet people we never came face to face with, to learn about events that happened far away in time and space. Written stories expanded that capacity exponentially. Stories made us human.
When I was a kid, I slept in my grandparents’ bedroom. First in a crib, then on a little couch in the corner of their room. My grandfather taught me math every night before I fell asleep. He drilled me on addition, subtraction, then multiplication. He used large numbers; and I always got the right answer. It was easy for me. Numbers formed a complex landscape that I could fly over. In the darkness, my grandfather would rattle out a problem — 337 + 781, for example — and I would fly over the beautiful hills and valleys until the answer would be right there. I loved that game. I then I would try to fall asleep really fast because my grandfather snored so loudly that if I didn’t I would never be able to due to the horrific noise. We played that game for years, until I was displaced from my grandparents’ room by my younger sister. I am currently reading a popular book on neurology, “The Man Who Tasted Words: A Neurologist Explores the Strange and Startling World of Our Senses” by Dr. Guy Leschziner. It explores many human variations in sensory perception either from birth or as…
We are the heroes of our own journey through life. That’s true whether or not we are basically good. No matter what kind of actions they took, Hitler, Putin, Jack the Ripper, or the Unabomber always viewed those actions as heroic nationalist, political, or social necessities done for the glory of “their” people. Their life choices were, in their minds, necessities of the moment. Even if people died, it was for the greater good.
Tamagotchis, AI companions, cars, and even rumbas have people that are heavily emotionally invested in these inanimate and abstract things, giving them pet names and interacting with them as if they were invested with souls. Perhaps humans jump to anthropomorphism inanimate objects faster than other species. But we are not alone in attributing life in this way. I wonder if intelligent life that evolved on other worlds possesses this trait as well? Is it a sign of higher consciousness or is it just an Earth thing?
Those who crave fame don’t truly appreciate anonymity. And those who have it, desire to find a way to hide from it. We live in the world where everyone seems to want their 15 minutes of fame and attention. For artists and writers having a wide audience is must if they want to sign with large agencies to represent them, if they want their work to be bought and sold. Or even if they want representation by an agent or a contract with a publisher — everyone wants an established market for stories.
Stories can bring the salient details of life to light. Real life contains a lot of noise and extraneous detail that can obscure a through line. Fictional stories remove that noise to rise the core themes and emotions to the surface for observation and examination. Fictional stories both pare down and embellish real life. They zoom in on the important stuff and focus the reader’s attention squarely there. When the story captures something true about the lives of its characters, it binds us to them. Usually, we find a story engrossing when we care about the characters and want to see what happens to them. While some portrait painters insist on live sittings with their subjects, it’s easier — although perhaps more facile — to start with a photograph. Photographs manage to capture some essence of personality, to flatten it into something easier to paint, simplifying the process of portraiture. Caricatures identify particular features of their subjects and render them in a ruthless way. In the realm of words, identifying salient features in characters and their world makes them more memorable and makes their actions more comprehensible. Perhaps caricatures resemble jokes in this way. Last month, I wrote about fairytales.…
The past is gone. The future hasn’t happened yet. The present is a liminal space between two non-existent things. We’re encouraged to stay present and live in the moment. But who really does that? Primarily, it’s young children and adults under duress. Young children live in the moment; their time is now. A toddler of a certain disposition doesn’t understand that taking a nap now will make them happier later. That kind of thinking requires conceptualizing a future self and taking actions now for its benefit. Those concepts take time to develop. Children typically develop time perception roughly equal to that of an adult by about eight years of age. [(2021) Development of Young Children’s Time Perception: Effect of Age and Emotional Localization] Another set of humans who are trapped in the moment are people caught in disasters — be it wars, personal attacks, illness, weather events, or earthquakes. Like young children, these individuals are also anchored in the present. When faced with the immediate demands of a catastrophe, there is little room left to consider the past or the future. Typically, as adults, we find ourselves oscillating between the past and the future, seldom pausing to embrace the now.…
