emptymanuscript: Preschool Handwriting Paper with three lines visible. In cursive script on the top line are the words "One Upon a Time" while on the bottom line are the words, "The Hero Dies." In block script, on the middle line, it reads, "The Empty Manuscript." (Default)
Eben Mishkin ([personal profile] emptymanuscript) wrote2019-01-19 09:44 am
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This is from the article Twenty-Five Useful Thinking Tools. Which is a pretty cool article. But this in particular strikes me as a fantastic illustration of how the art of story works. Even with nonfiction, we pare and organize into straight emotionally logical paths. What allows our creativity to thrive are the forms we have to stick to in order to make it FEEL real rather than to report reality as the chaotic mess it is.
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yvannairie: :3 (Default)

[personal profile] yvannairie 2019-01-19 08:28 pm (UTC)(link)
Yeah, I've thought the same thing before. I'm a firm believer in being able to rationally quantify my past to explain Why The Fuck I'm Like This, but that is still different from seeing how things fit into a narrative.
emptymanuscript: Preschool Handwriting Paper with three lines visible. In cursive script on the top line are the words "One Upon a Time" while on the bottom line are the words, "The Hero Dies." In block script, on the middle line, it reads, "The Empty Manuscript." (Default)

[personal profile] emptymanuscript 2019-01-21 12:47 am (UTC)(link)
Yeah. I hear you. I don't know. I've had at least one of my therapists put forward the idea that you can't: that you're stuck in narrative because things mess us up before we can remember them. So their rec was to just accept narrative and work with it because the feelings are what is important anyway. But I don't know. It never much satisfied me. So... yeah.
yvannairie: :3 (Default)

[personal profile] yvannairie 2019-01-21 09:12 am (UTC)(link)
I mean I get it in the sense that narrativist thinking can easily lead to magical thinking -- "this was meant to happen" -- but I agree it feels hollow not somehow acknowledging that events have causes.
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