Stories

The human being seems geared toward the telling of stories. The practice of spinning yarns and telling tall tales is present in every culture I have ever heard of. For as long as we have been on the planet, we have sat around and amused, informed, fascinated and terrorized each other by telling stories.

It matters not if those stories are true. If they are, fine, but a good story teller knows that there are many ways to spin a tale. In fact, I have know many a fine story teller and usually, each time they told a story, it came out a bit different,

A story can be a total fabrication. In fact, I have long felt that the ability to lie is what really sets humans apart from other creatures. Other animals, we now know, use tools and have a sort of language. For a long time, we were told that they didn't and we did and that was the difference. That can no longer be said. However, as far as we can tell, dogs and dolphins and squirrels don't lie to each other.

Among us humans, lying, as long as your not telling malicious stories about your neighbors, is not only acceptable, it pays well. All of the great writers and film makers are great liars, in that they are making up tales for us to enjoy.

Now, just because a story may deal with something that didn't happen in the real world, doesn't mean it's not true. Sometimes, often, it is easier to make  a true point in a factitious story because you can bend the details to help you make your point.

Why am I writing this? Because I miss stories. I see few worthy novels written today. The movies are far more concerned with special effects and idiotic violence to bother with details like interesting characters and decent plots. And, TV, well that's hopeless.

The World seems to move too fast for people to slow down and listen to stories and that is a horrific mistake. No wonder we have so much talk of transhumanism. We have lost interest in being human and I miss that.