Escapism
A friend once asked me why I was so obsessed with stories...
Well, no. That's not true. No one ever asked me about it. Sometimes I imagined that they would. And I knew just what I would say. I would explain how stories take us away from complexity. Life is a very chaotic thing, you see. We have a million tiny tasks that arise, fester, and die under our lack of focus or time. But in stories, there are only a handful of tasks, all of which are important. Things get done. Good, or in some cases anti-good (which is rather different from "bad") always seems to win. There is meaning in stories.
But what about real life? There's no meaning to it. Well, unless you graft meaning to it. I think that's why religion is such a big part of so many people's lives. It's a way of pretending that old stories are real. And it even gives us a story-book ending: the coveted "happily ever after."
But I couldn't buy into that. Religious stories are long and confusing, and they always stay the same. But fiction! Now, there is something that is always changing, always growing. You can read, or listen to, or watch a million million stories and not even sratch the surface what fiction has to offer. And our dreams, oh our dreams! What wonder worlds lie behind our eyelids! And it seemed like every day, it was a little harder to wake from my dreams.
I think that was why, when I began reading my last story, I felt like I was in a waking dream. It never quite seemed entirely real. I couldn't be sure if I was reading the story, or I was living it. Everything began to grow indistinct and blurry.
Memories. It's funny when you think about it, but the sum total of our whole lives can be boiled down to barely over a hundred really vivid memories. Sure, given enough time, we can think of all kinds of boring, trivial things that happened in our lives, but the things we really remember, the things we tell to others, they're so simple, so linear... it's as if our lives were stories all along. No complexity, no chaos, just beautiful fiction.
I can't imagine a nicer way to pass, than with the final words of your life story slipping from your tongue, into the ears of of the avid. Because what are we, if not the ripple of a story on the great dreamscape of human fiction?
Well, no. That's not true. No one ever asked me about it. Sometimes I imagined that they would. And I knew just what I would say. I would explain how stories take us away from complexity. Life is a very chaotic thing, you see. We have a million tiny tasks that arise, fester, and die under our lack of focus or time. But in stories, there are only a handful of tasks, all of which are important. Things get done. Good, or in some cases anti-good (which is rather different from "bad") always seems to win. There is meaning in stories.
But what about real life? There's no meaning to it. Well, unless you graft meaning to it. I think that's why religion is such a big part of so many people's lives. It's a way of pretending that old stories are real. And it even gives us a story-book ending: the coveted "happily ever after."
But I couldn't buy into that. Religious stories are long and confusing, and they always stay the same. But fiction! Now, there is something that is always changing, always growing. You can read, or listen to, or watch a million million stories and not even sratch the surface what fiction has to offer. And our dreams, oh our dreams! What wonder worlds lie behind our eyelids! And it seemed like every day, it was a little harder to wake from my dreams.
I think that was why, when I began reading my last story, I felt like I was in a waking dream. It never quite seemed entirely real. I couldn't be sure if I was reading the story, or I was living it. Everything began to grow indistinct and blurry.
Memories. It's funny when you think about it, but the sum total of our whole lives can be boiled down to barely over a hundred really vivid memories. Sure, given enough time, we can think of all kinds of boring, trivial things that happened in our lives, but the things we really remember, the things we tell to others, they're so simple, so linear... it's as if our lives were stories all along. No complexity, no chaos, just beautiful fiction.
I can't imagine a nicer way to pass, than with the final words of your life story slipping from your tongue, into the ears of of the avid. Because what are we, if not the ripple of a story on the great dreamscape of human fiction?
posted by Jonc0re at
11:31 PM
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