The real meaning of stories

[Rogue]

A few evenings ago I discovered a most powerful quote:

Stories hold power because they convey the illusion that life has purpose and direction. Where God is absent from the lives of all but the most blessed, the writer, of all people, replaces that ordering principle. Stories make sense when so much around us is senseless, and perhaps what makes them most comforting is that, while life goes on and pain goes on, stories do us the favor of ending.

The author of the quote was actor and humorist John Hodgman, who played PC in the Mac commercials. I recognize the basic foundation of his reasoning as philosophical existentialism, the philosophy about taking responsibility for your actions and recognizing that life has no god-given inherent purpose—the middle road between nihilism and anti-nihilism. To quote from the book cover of How To Be an Existentialist by Gary Cox:

Many people have the silly idea gleaned from movies, adverts and glossy magazines, that life is perfectible. The idea that other people out there somewhere have achieved the perfect life. So, they feel dissatisfied with the life they have or even downright cheated out of the life they think they deserve but don't have, the life that no one has. They yearn for a life of perfect happiness that is impossible, while failing to take control of the life they do have and make it more rewarding through decisive, realistic action. Existentialists are nihilists because they recognize that life is ultimately absurd and full of terrible, inescapable truths. They are anti-nihilists because they recognize that life does in fact have a meaning: the meaning each person chooses to give his or her own existence. They recognize that each person is free to create themselves and make something worthwhile of themselves by striving against life's difficulties.

And so it seems the reasoning would be quite fitting for the power of story-telling—in novels, poems, short stories, films, television—to derive itself from finding direction and purpose out of random senselessness. Hollywood people have always sang the cliché tune about people watching movies to "escape their ordinary boring lives" with fantasy—but it's not a fantasy of exotic environments, but one of hope. Hope springs eternal.

Okay, now it's time for me to throw down some game at a BBQ party.

 

[KarmaSutra]

One of my go-to books is William Barrett's: Irrational Man. The most concise tome of rational Existentialist thought I've ever read.

It singlehandedly changed my perspective.

You want your head spinned around through the immense power of storytelling? Follow Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey work.

 

[Ease]

I pity any man that wastes so much of his time thinking about such empty and pointless ideas.

A science without any knowledge, and idea without any effect. They are hypocrites in that their life actually has no meaning because they have wasted their time defining it so. The real man making the most of what he has isn't the one saying these words and writing books on these inspirational ideas.

 

[Warrior74]

I pity any man that wastes so much of his time thinking about such empty and pointless ideas.

A science without any knowledge, and idea without any effect. They are hypocrites in that their life actually has no meaning because they have wasted their time defining it so. The real man making the most of what he has isn't the one saying these words and writing books on these inspirational ideas.

Any time I hear any one trying to control and define people using the term "a real man" I stop listening. You can thank women for that one. That bit of shaming just doesn't hold weight with me any more. Wither a man does what you like or not, he's not imaginary, nor do you set the standard for what is real and authentic. Leave that sort of language to the wimminz.

 

[Ease]

Any time I hear any one trying to control and define people using the term "a real man" I stop listening. You can thank women for that one. That bit of shaming just doesn't hold weight with me any more. Wither a man does what you like or not, he's not imaginary, nor do you set the standard for what is real and authentic. Leave that sort of language to the wimminz.

You misread the sentance, try this:

'The man making the most of what he has isn't the one saying these words and writing books on these inspirational ideas.'

What i'm saying is that this is pointless.

50 pounds for the first to spot the strange grammar error i made in the first post.

 

[Warrior74]

Yah I know what you were saying. I don't agree.

 

[KarmaSutra]

50 pounds for the first to spot the strange grammar error i made in the first post.

You're to gain 50 pounds for being a grammatical idiot, or just for being an idiot?