The stories we tell are wish fulfillment. When the world does not conform to our standards, we create an ideal world that suits our values.
Authors pen their own bibles.
When we reach for the imagined ideals of Cyrano, Rocky, or Jed Bartlett, we are reaching toward a human heaven. Shoulders snapping out of their sockets, we forget that our models were fabricated.
Some are made sturdier by the process, others' foundations can never be built on again.
I particularly enjoy this one. And, as rare as it is, actually agree.
ReplyDelete"Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures." - Ralph Waldo Emerson.
-Googlybear.
I think generally this is true. But there are times when the opposite may be the case, like when I read Borges. Is fiction a creation of the ideal, or is the ideal spawned from the fiction? I don't know. But I do like to read Borges and pretend that I can ask these questions.
ReplyDelete-Gabe
(p.s. miss ya, bud)
I just realized I phrased my point badly. What I meant was: do we create fiction from ideal imaginations, or do we create ideal imaginations from fiction?
ReplyDeleteMiss you, Gabe. Give LA hell.
ReplyDelete