Skip to main content

Nature, History, and Narrative

''Children, only animals live entirely in the Here and Now. Only nature knows neither memory nor history. But man -let me offer you a definition - is the storytelling animal. Wherever he goes he wants to leave behind not a chaotic wake, not an empty space, but the comforting marker-buoys and trail-signs of stories. He has to go on telling stories. He has to keep on making them up. As long as there's a story, it's all right. Even in his last moments, it's said, in the split second of a fatal fall- or when he's about to drown - he sees, passing rapidly before him, the story of his whole life.''

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

DEATH INFLICTS HAPPINESS

 Happiness is a way of acknowledging your inherent hopelessness in the face of death. It is the first gasp of air you breath in once you have come out of the depths of despair. Conscious of the inevitable existence in a physical universe and the dreary wait that it entails, and yet without any deliberate motive to end it, you simply don't despair. Death inflicts happiness. 

Fear of the Other

A defining characteristic of human society is its tribalism: its tendency to gather in groups which define themselves by certain common characteristics, and differentiate themselves—set themselves apart from and at odds—with other groups and individuals who do not share these characteristics...  The fact is that people identify with the group of which they are a part, and are suspicious or fearful of those who belong to other groups. This tribalism is true in countless dimensions, from income to accent to national origin to sexual activity to race to musical taste...