Stories

[penmage]

A question for all of you:

Why are stories important?

I know why stories are important to me, I know why I think that if I was cut off from stories it would be like being cut off from oxygen. But why are stories important to you? I'm talking about stories of all kinds here, written, unwritten, in any media. Why are stories important? Why are they important to you, why are they important to the world, why are they important in general?

Comments

[regyt.livejournal.com]

Because they tell true things that can't be conveyed in any other way. Or at least the good ones do, the ones worth reading and hearing and telling and remembering.

[haikujaguar.livejournal.com]

Because they are records of individual humans teaching themselves something in front of us: a deeply private spiritual act made into a public, intimate act for our edification, entertainment and enlightenment... out of love or need or passion.

What more could you want?

[janni.livejournal.com]

Because they help us see our way through. All manner of things.

[cerberus.livejournal.com]

Because they allow your mind to go in directions you can't explore otherwise.

[jaenanda.livejournal.com]

Stories are important because they provide a framework for our existence. They provoke objectivity and remind us that there is more to this life than simply the moment we are walking through.

Through stories, we remember the past, envision the future, and fully savor the present. Without stories, we'd have no wisdom to draw from, no hope to aspire to, no indication that the bleakness we are feeling might not be lasting.

Because of stories, we reach out to people byond our own selves, because stories allow us to relate to other people in ways and means we might otherwise never approach. Because of stories, we can learn from the mistakes of other, whether real or fictional, and prevent the reoccurance of tragedy, or at least know that we walked into out own fate not caught unawares.

That's what stories are for, really. And that's why they're necessary, and that's why we write them and read them and share them and celebrate them. Because stories, combined, tell us about us.

[skywriting-----.livejournal.com]

Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.

- Kurt Vonnegut

*foma = harmless untruths.


Because life has no beginning or end or reason, and stories make microcosms of emotion and circumstance and personality, give them a scope manageable for analysis. Because stories tell me the truth when life so often doesn't. Because archetypes exist for a reason. Because I may never master "accio!" Because facts can only inform you of so much. Because imagination exists. Because in order to learn you must process. Because reality can be depressing. Because a fictional boy will never break my heart. Because art is the only thing I'm sure of. Because.

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

Because we *are* the stories we tell about ourselves, and the stories others tell about us. For the lucky few, those stories are even true.

What is a reputation, if not a story? What is a curriculum vitae, in fact, if not a story? What are memories, what are regrets, what is experience, if not a story?

What makes us human is our ability to learn from the past and build upon it. What makes us human are our stories.

[skylarker.livejournal.com]

Stories=Sanity. They provide maps for organizing the overload of information that is human existence in the world. What matters? Among all we see, hear, feel, taste, smell, do, have done to us, all the events great and small, plans and memories and conventions. Every story has an approach to sorting and placing experience in an objective framework.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

Because I can see others living their lives, and I am eternally curious. Because I can be others, just for a time, and the memory and experience I then can share with many more who walk the same imaginary landscape. Because story entertains me, and I love being entertained. Story engages me, teaches me, inspires me, chides me, causes me to reflect on my own lifestory, and...so I try to edit it with a tad more polish!

[opal1159.livejournal.com]

Because I'm totally out of originality - Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories is exactly this. It's also part censorship, part people out to get him, but it's still great one for stories.

[besideserato.livejournal.com]

Stories are the cities of our interior, places we cannot come to know otherwise. To desert these places would be to desert yourself, your humanity.