Story

"Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in a cottage near a forest. The forest was dark and forbidding, the cottage, though, was bright and pleasant and full of goodwill to all who arrived at its door. The girl had lived in the cottage all her life with her mother and father and brothers and sisters and grandparents and a dog named Yahweh, probably because he barked so loudly."

This is the beginning of a Story, the expression of a situation which we understand from the first four words to be a fiction with a well-rehearsed point, nothing especially ambiguous about it, most people will understand the allegory, if any, quickly and then move on to a next story, consuming that one too, as nourishment for what seems to be an insatiable appetite for information about the world. Stories vary in structure and content and most particularly in their purpose. Some stories are meant "only" to evoke an emotion and having done that they are finished. Some stories are created to illustrate a lesson, such as "crime does not pay," or as with the Horatio Alger stories of late 19th c. America, the notion that anyone with sufficient enthusiasm and industry can do whatever they want, the subtext being that those who have accumulated great power and wealth are, more or less by definition morally superior.

We speak of life stories and biographies and somehow we know the difference between the two, despite the fact that in English the terms are almost synonymous. Biographies are more formal, it seems. They follow a traditional arc and usually are published for purchase and with the purpose not only of enriching the author, but to make some set of points that the author believes are important to his own time for those whom he expects will be the readership. Histories, Geschichte in German—the same word for both Story and History, are biographies of groups of people, stories usually of the same subject, tribe, community or nation. Histories have points of view and points to make as well.

Historical consciousness is an important development in human beings, and it usually begins to appear at about the onset of sentience, around age four or five. In fact, sentience, which is the ability to be self-aware and reflective, may be possible only when the sentient being understands his or her life not as a blur of passing moments, but as a trajectory or movement through time. But historical consciousness is not simply a matter of describing yesterday and the day before that; it is purposeful, so if the story in the history is about what was eaten at each meal for the last week, then the selection of facts suggests a point—something to do with diet, perhaps obeisity or health or the need to venture forth to replenish the stores from whence the meals came.

The story of a life, then, will have important selections of micro-stories which illuminate some trend or process that became apparent only much later than the first-described events. The story of your life as a conscious being will include elements designed to show you how your consciousness matured and what it was like when those breakthrough moments happened, and what the surrounding circumstances might have been, so that if the surrounding circumstances are germane, you might choose to replicate those circumstances.

We each have many life stories, of course. I have life story of me as astronomer which goes back to about the fifth grade and fades from view for long stretches of my lifetime, but which on reflection appears to be a common and continuous thread of my existence. I also have a short history as a golfer and another short history as a gourmand chef with emphasis on Italian cookery. My hundreds of life stories, including stories about my girlfriends and my parents and my siblings, neighborhood friends, and my locales, all form a matrix from which my metaphors of exploration and explanation are drawn. If I were a poet or professor of poetry all my experiences in poetry would be a treasure chest of metaphorical building blocks for my thoughts.

Sometimes we feel like our ability to express a thought has been taken from us. It may be that we have not tried to relate the thought to something we know the words for. So, for instance, when I am describing my lifetime Longing, I retreat to the words of Tennyson and tell you that I am "always roaming with a hungry heart." I have drawn an analogy between my stomach and my heart, both as slightly idealized organs of my passions.

Our stories are tapestries woven to a purpose and through processes akin to weaving such that separate threads are made to appear again and again or to disappear to become part of the fabric supporting the story, but not visibly participating in it. You will find that there are different weaves for different purposes as there are many kinds of metaphor for the many aspects of human imagination.

Interpretation—

The beginning of our story suggests a children's story, even if it is meant also for adults. It disarms and quickly establishes the reader's obligation to begin to suspend disbelief." The girl living near a forest suggests a story akin to the story of Little Red Ridinghood (Rotkapchen in German). If this connection is made then a flood of remembrances is released and the author has provided a backdrop against which he can establish differences and similarities, playing you along in terms of two stories. But, if you have never heard of Red Ridinghood, you will immediately understand a sense of vulnerability for a little girl near a dark forest. The author intends you to notice the vulnerability, and he will play on it. The fact that she lives in a cottage, a smaller house, suggests vulnerability as well. The fact that goodwill emanates from the cottage suggests immediately the opportunity for its opposite ... else why mention it at all, eh! The girl has lived here all her life, so she knows nothing (particular) of the rest of the world. And, her family seems to be large, so crowding within must be the case, and there we have our first line of plot, an issue that begs for resolution. The dog named Yahweh, suggests something about the family that is almost completely out of character with "gingerbread" cottages, that is, a sardonic and slightly irreverent use of a name of god for a dog, which in English at least is an anagram, and if this is picked up by the reader, a sense that there are levels in the story about to unfold.

All stories are interpreted in this way. The opening words fall into a matrix of expectations and quickly are decoded, categorized, and associated with past experience, both real and fictive. Interpretation is a progressive provisional process which children learn by repeating the process again and again, noticing self-consciously the little bits that eluded them while their own minds were experiencing the cascades of thought stimulated by the written or spoken word.

Muses—

Clio is the muse of History. There are other muses for human intellectual endeavors including Terpsichore for Dance, Mnemosyne for Memory, Calliope for Epic Poetry, Euterpe for Lyric Song, Erato for Erotic Poetry, Melpomene for Tragedy, Polyhymnia for Sacred Music, Thalia for Comedy, and Urania for Astronomy. If you have been a writer you know about "blocks" and therefore you probably also know about "muses."

Artists say, "the muse was with me," as if they were actually visited by a being who brought their art to them, or more likely released them from their cares to make possible communication with their subconscious thoughts on their subject. It is interesting to notice what areas of endeavor the ancient Greeks thought might be controlled by muses, and by interpolation those areas where humans can often fall short of their own expectations.

To be in the company of your muse is akin to achieving a refined, if not different, level of consciousness. We urge you to consider muses seriously, for it is a way to understand consciousness.

Audience—

It should be apparent that stories have audiences and that audiences are important not only to marketing departments but to authors as well. Some authors put something into their work for different audiences, others direct their thoughts to an hypothetical ideal reader. Always read to discover the audience of which you are a part.