§1. Stop and Start on Story
***What remains to be done is simple: form a committee to select the world’s reading list. If it’s true that storytelling instructs, harmony will spread worldwide when everybody is forced to read from the same handouts.
Of course, no one will do it as everybody realizes deep down that storytelling instructs the foot as well as the wad. What he gets out a story depends more on himself than the author. Sometimes, it’s even the case that what he gets out of a story is precisely opposite of what the creator intended. This is because art is nothing but a clouded mirror. Whenever I squint and catch a glance of myself eying me, I say it loud, “Genius!”
***Forcing the masses to read won’t soothe or enlighten us. Not even a bit. For all my books and language classes, I still eat with my hands. And if it’s chicken on my fingers, I lick them clean.
***It’s more likely we’ll kill each other in order to avoid grinding through The Scarlet Letter.
***At its worst, storytelling deceives and manipulates. The boy thinks the girl is his, the mother knows everything will turn out fine, the old man leaves the house for Honor. Yet none of these things are true.
If anything, the boy needs to wash his armpits. He won’t, though, because they never show it in the movies. (There’s nobody more obnoxious than the guy who thinks his life’s a biopic.)
***At its best, storytelling presents a conceit to expound upon great themes, ideas, and emotions. A story ought to be an invitation. Unfortunately, many start and stop with the plot itself, which makes for a horrendously boring and uninspired affair. There’s a reason, after all, nobody ever read Aristotle.
***Some stories are much better experienced than summarized; though the synopsis may be tantalizing, it misses something inexplicable.
And then there are those stories that are fine as a page, good as a paragraph, and excellent as a logline; they exist as nothing more than a promise. Once your attention has been grabbed and you commit, it has served its purpose. The ten is spent, the popcorn has been bought, and the shoeshine is indulged.
***The most profound story is one in which everybody can agree it has taken place, but nobody can agree on what it was. Something akin to existence itself.
This is why philosophy should be avoided. In trying to make life into a story of causes and effects, it misses everything intangible that makes it worth living.
Porphyro 