http://www.thecouchforum.com Come speak your mind about whatever. en-us Stephenie Meyer, Stephen King, Janet Evanovich and James Patterson are top earning authors in the world today. If you do a little googling, you would find that highest paid and bestselling authors of all times are: Charles Dickens, Agatha Christie, William Shakespeare and J. R. R. Tolkien. What is common in these authors? Yes, all of them are storytellers. Humanity as a whole has a great need of stories. Stories touch something inside our core, our being, affect our way of living and perception and yes, entertain us. [quote=Susan Whigham] Storytelling does more than alleviate boredom, it also calls into play very deeply resonant archetypes and so I feel that storytelling connects to people on a very spiritual level. With sports, though, you have the added impact of great demonstrations of physical prowess and skill. Nonetheless, you can see such demonstrations in other aspects of entertainment - for example at the circus, or at a dance concert, where you might see very talented acrobats perform amazing feats. Still, I don't think these have the same emotional impact that forms of storytelling have.[/quote] You must be having memories of your childhood days, when your parents, grandparents, uncle and aunt used to tell you bed time stories. In spite of monkey mind which ever keeps on chattering and wandering here and there quicker than you can imagine in case of children, a good story, narrated equally well, and could act as an enchanting agent. They don't only get hooked to it but also create their moral values from it. From bed time stories to cartoons and movies, our fascination for stories never lessens. As we grow up, some of us might not like reading novels, or watching Cricket Test matches, because they need a lot of patience and time, but almost all of us, in some form or other spend every day in listening, watching, reading and telling stories. Stories in epics inspire us and act as motivators to improve our righteousness. We will not delve into the matter of what is right or wrong here, because we are here to explore the role of storytelling in our lives. We ourselves live in stories. Shakespeare expressed it so beautifully: [quote=Shaespeare] Jaques: All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players; They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139â€"143[/quote] We are consistently creating this fiction called 'Life' subconsciously. We weave fabrics of this story every single moment of our waking life and even in dreams we don't cease to do it. Dreams are nothing but most vivid and brilliant stories we could ever create. Many of us who have contemplated upon the nature of our dreams realize that if we could just do ten percent as good in our real life, with our stories, as our subconscious brain does in dreams; we will astonish ourselves with majesty of the beauty created. Good dreams make us feel good and bad dreams let us purge out our heavy emotions. Many nightmares in which we feel embarrassed are nothing but preparation of events to come. In all our dreams, we are protagonists, no matter whether we are winning or losing, fighting or chasing, enjoying or suffering, we are the heroes of our stories. And the same applies to our waking lives as well. We always have a story to tell. We might live with facts, but not for enough long. That is why philosophers are so dull and boring. We have a story of success or struggle to tell and we confound that story with our life. I have so often made it clear to people that what we have in our head is our life story and not life. We are the life. I AM the life. This confusion that our life story is our life, takes away a lot of joy, beauty and light from us. But I don't intend to waste your time with techniques to live in the present moment. All great philosophers and mystics do it. They suggest that if you want to find the Truth and Life, just start breaking the stories and start living with facts. It's never easy because we are so accustomed to stories and to part with them seems like to part with essence of our being. All stories are fiction. All facts are also fiction because they're merely interpretation. Human form doesn't allow us access to facts. The facts are creations of human mind's narrow window of analysis of phenomenon and this very mind is also one of the phenomenons. The fiction is not Truth and it could never be, but still it's the most important part of our day-to-day existence. We cannot live without stories in our heads and we cannot live without dreams. The sleep which replenishes us with life force energy has dreams as core of its mechanisms which help us function well. Sports, games, recreations and chattering are in a way or other forms of storytelling and their aim is mostly to get entertained. Gaining skill or information is secondary. Even the skill gained by some of the finest practitioners is used to entertain others, to help titillate them by supporting narratives in their heads. All art forms, symbolic or explicit, aim at telling a story and the audience might not be 'the other'. Dreams are stories where narrator, narration, narrated and audience have so much in common. You might have observed characters in movies talking to their dogs or diaries to purge their emotions out or to get rid of their boredom. The sense of having an audience does improve the feedback loop and makes narrative more vivid and vibrant but it's always the story for the storyteller. We create our stories for ourselves. The world is a projection of our own self and if you want to replace word 'projection' with 'story,' it would do great! The storytellers in our culture are rewarded so well because we have a great need for good stories. This is a permanent demand, therefore the supply must be permanent and suppliers are always needed. Storytellers solve problems of humanity. They, on one hand, let audience divert their mind from grim reality and existential nightmare, and on the other hand, let audience get rid of boredom and find solace in the stories which boost their morale. This is why Cinema, TV, Novels and Sports have such a great importance in our society. Core moral values look so dry in the absence of stories; therefore we create magnificent narratives of miracles to let values pass through our minds. We create epics with values. Most of us take them with any critical thinking and start fighting based on what is written in the book, because we are so highly addicted a culture that we cannot find difference between stories and reality. We kill anyone who threatens to break the illusion of our stories. We banish those who try to awaken us from our dreams. We don't want to wake up because stories are so comforting and they help us live. http://www.thecouchforum.com/comments.php?id=1998 Sat, 19 May 2012 08:50:36 GMT http://www.thecouchforum.com/link.php?action=detail&id=1998 [center/b]A Bad Dream.[/center/b] Newbent's particulars: forty three year old father of two, divorced, living alone, estranged from his brother and divorced parents, a self employed builder by trade. This parade of facts echoed in his cool cool mind before sinking into sleep. Soon - when he was gone - they would play in the media like his last cries to the world. People would look at the facts and see him; they would stare at the photograph, into the eyes, trying to picture thought processes, even a soul. Whatever it was, whatever, in the end, was the light that ran the Newbent machine; this something, he was more sure than he'd ever been sure, would soon flicker out like a pilot light. Gone. No more guilt, regret, tears, no more hope, pain, thought, fear or love. And he had control; Newbent finally had control. The morning came and he didn't click into it, the machine wasn't running like it had been the night before. He rose and went through the usual rituals but still the chunk of dream that had clogged his workings during the night hung heavy within him like lead shoes. He couldn't explain the obstruction or think it away and it was getting in the way of what he had to do. Newbent sat down on the sofa and stared at the wall but it wouldn't fade, his new habit of blocking out everything except that one idea - the pattern that had been working for the previous few days - didn't work as it had been doing. Emotion had entered his life again and it was a horrible sensation. "Fuck!" Newbent shouted. He was pinned now, as if a giant hand was pushing him back into the seat. He realised that the only thing that would get him going again would be to go over the dream that was still so vividly alive in his mind. Newbent could, in that way, deactivate it, neutralise its strange power and get on with his day. First, as planned, he had driven in his van to Butler's yard. Butler and the other lads all used to work for him but they'd gone off and started their own concern. Newbent had been offering increasingly lower quotes to keep work coming in and had cut everyone's pay but eventually they'd turned on him and gone off on their own. It had been a malicious stab in the back; it was Butler he blamed, Newbent had taken him on when he'd still been a teenager and taught him everything he knew and that was how he'd decided to repay him. Now, on his own, he'd been forced to do bits and pieces of work and the money wasn't coming in and the mortgage payments weren't being met. Pulling into the site early he had known, in the dream, that Butler always arrived first to get things ready; he'd sat in his van watching - soon the other man's truck would pull into his yard to load up for the day. He had felt the gun in his hands and he had held it firmly and with an overriding sense of purpose; Butler wasn't going to be alive for much longer. Then, from the back of the van, somehow, came the voice of his stepmother. He hadn't seen her for years, she'd been the only one who had shown he and his brother kindness and her voice always melted something in him - even now, even after the machine had taken hold. "What are you doing Bill?" went the voice. "Janet? Where have you been, you went away.." "You know I had to Bill. It was your dad. Your mother had warned me but he was too much to live with, that temper of his." "But what about us? You were the only one.." the emotion had started to get hold of him, this had been where it had begun. "I'm sorry Bill." He'd looked in the back of the van but nobody had been there. Then he was standing behind Butler in the yard, he'd been carring a bag of cement. It had been - like now - a dark winter morning, he had followed the man's head with the barrel of the rifle like in a computer game. The only time he'd ever shot anything was on the range and on a few hunting trips he'd been on. Man hunting was going to carry more baggage, he knew, unless he could keep the machine in motion. He'd pulled the trigger but nothing had happened, he'd tried again, then again. "But he's your friend Bill," "This is none of your business Janet." Then, after clicking on the trigger madly for what seemed like minutes, it had gone off and the body had fallen forward in slow motion, the back of the head blown away. It had gone into spasms and an outstretched arm tried to drag the rest of the it toward the van like a children's toy on low batteries. Newbent had felt things working again and there had been a form of cool pleasure in his man hunting. He'd turned over the body and found his former friend's face - to his surprise - had still been in one piece. It had looked desperately back at him trying to say something but Newbent had discharged the rifle coldly into it at point blank range. He had to pay maintenance to his ex and the horses weren't running like they used to. He'd extended the house to make it more attractive for a quick sale he planned to pay off the money he owed but the council had said - after a year of work in his own time - that it contravened the planning permission he'd been given. His kids didn't love him any more, their mother had seen to that, nobody loved him any more. The world had made him into what he was, the world had destroyed what was good in him. He'd been drinking more and more and had lost many of the little jobs he could get because of it. Newbent had been successful, everybody used to show him that bit of respect that had kept the wolves at bay, that had made him feel like a man. She had loved him and given him two healthy boys. She had never understood him and had said, before she'd left, that she was scared of him and for the kids. How many times had he actually hit her - or them? Outside the house he had built he'd looked up at the windows. The kid's bedrooms were round the back, she was sure to be in the double up front. He'd felt all the homely instincts again coursing through him as he'd quietly took the stairs and the house's silence had made it feel like a comfortable tomb. The machine had whirred despite these surface emotions, still he'd known he'd be able to brush them aside like flies, they wouldn't trouble him when it came to performing the deed. "You did well for yourself Bill." "Why won't you leave me alone? You left us, this is your fault you know.." his voice had left him in an alienated way. "Don't say that Bill. You were such lovely boys, none of it was your fault you know. Look at what you managed to do for yourself...." "No. You won't stop me..." He'd begun moving faster and gone quietly into the double bedroom. The body had been lying facing the ceiling with eyes closed, he'd known there was a good chance she'd still be awake as she had always been a light sleeper. He'd got close enough to get a decent shot using the hand gun and home made silencer. Then through the half light, blue now insinuating into the room from behind the curtains, he'd seen the face of Janet, his stepmother. The eyes had opened and she had stared at him. "No Bill." "You can't stop me, not now, nobody can stop me." "No Bill." He'd pulled at the trigger but again the thing hadn't worked. He'd tried the mad clicking as he had with the rifle but nothing had come. "There's more than one way to skin a cat you know.." "No Bill. No. I won't let you." He'd gone downstairs and found a sturdy kitchen knife but had known he wouldn't be able to use it. "You're no killer Bill," came her voice from the living room. He'd turned on the gas and gone to get some petrol from the van. He'd walked around the house sloshing it as his stepmother had carried on calmly trying to tell him who he was. "I built the place, they're my kids, I'll finish it." The house had gone up and he'd driven away without saying goodbye to the kids. He'd felt them to be like expensive possessions he'd decided to let go of. Still the way had been clear, the fire had been burning furiously and it was unlikely anyone would be able to get out, very unlikely. 'The trail of destruction' they'd call it, he even pictured a computer generated map on the television screen now, sitting on the sofa, going over the dream. Still the heavy weight was within him, it hadn't been deactivated; it was her, Janet, she was stopping him now. Though he'd see it through; once he'd got the bad dream out of his system he'd see its significance and be able to get moving, get on with it. In the dream he'd been aware that it was light and things were going to start getting more difficult. Councillor Thompson, the one who he'd bitterly fought with over his house extension, lived on the other side of town in a dignified old detached. Newbent assumed he had family - he'd already reconnoitred the place and thought about the other man's life - but this possibility didn't move him. The man had fought a crusade against him over a few feet of built over land and he would regret his little part in destroying William Newbent before his life flickered out. The other man left home at nearly exactly the same time every morning. He'd pulled up in the van and decided to go with the rifle again as it was a busy street and the councillor would be found quickly however much noise was made. Newbent had watched him leave his front door in a rush - he'd had the same emotionless, cruel expression he'd held throughout their association. Blocking the drive with the van he'd stepped out of the driver's seat surprised at the lightness of his movements - it had felt like it was all going like clockwork again and the voices had gone. The other man had been clearing his iced up windscreen with a scraper. For some reason he'd looked up without surprise as Newbent approached. "You can't kill me I'm afraid Mr Newbent." "Really, we'll see about that." Newbent had pulled the trigger after pointing the rifle at the man's head. Nothing had happened. "It's Janet, she says there's to be no more killing I'm afraid. Don't shoot the messenger," he'd giggled in his supercilious way. "Or rather, you are unable to." Newbent cried out in exasperation still pinned to his sofa. "Fuck! What's wrong with me?" He dug his fingers into the cushions, his body was sweating and his throat dry. For the first time in a long time he felt a palpable sense of fear. What had happened next? He searched for the tail end of the dream. He'd been unable to do anything, Thompson had sat down in his car patiently and waited for the killer to go. Newbent had found himself back in the van unclear as to where he was going next. Then, pulled by a magnet of some kind, he'd found himself heading for the new shopping centre on the edge of the town. His company had been contracted to do work on the place years before and he knew the layout well. He'd known it would just be opening, that the artificial atmosphere inside, the fake plants, glass ceiling and trivial music would provide a strange final setting for it all. He'd felt it would be the final flourish - he still hadn't been quite sure what he was going to do in there. Despite the setbacks the machine had been running and he had known it needed feeding with more acts. Newbent hadn't felt angry as such. The guns needed to be emptied, the world needed to know; Butler had gone down easily and he'd known the man. With others it was likely to be equally effortless and there would be that pulse of pleasure he'd felt and always sensed would accompany it all when it got going. Newbent had been in control and the world had been suffering. Newbent had been back in control and everybody possible was going to suffer now. Children might suffer, old women, old men, pregnant mothers. He had been no longer making distinctions and had found the place within himself where the civilising force failed and dwindled - it had been revealed for what it was: a series of cortical pathways forged by social systems that could, with the right pressures and traits, be eclipsed. Then the world would throw up its arms and ask 'why?' Soon, however, the veil of illusion would fall back over things, real violence confined - for most - to scenes of its aftermath on the television screen. The guns in a bag he'd strolled around the centre watching the shop assistants busily preparing for the day's business. People had been dotted around; he still hadn't been sure what he was going to do so decided to get a coffee from Starbucks. As he'd sat sipping a Latte the flow of bodies had gradually increased and he had sensed the usual mild alienation felt in shopping centres reach a new level. He'd begun to feel excited, perhaps with the help of the large coffee he'd been slurping. Newbent had started luxuriating in a novel sense of choice. All of them were in his power now, whatever he was going to decide in the coming minutes would have immense consequences for a large number of people close by him who knew nothing of his life and troubles - the latter fact only heightening his sense of pleasure. Before he had sworn at the terrorists, those idiots that had blown themselves up to get a bit of glory but then had felt at one with what they had sacrificed; he'd known what it felt to be a lonely man in a disbelieving world and to be clinging violently to your own monolithic concept. Whatever it was they believed in what they had felt in the final moments couldn't have been much different to what he had been feeling then. Only the images were different. Casually, he seemed to remember, he'd joined the procession of shoppers - mostly mums with young kids - milling around the centre. He'd leant against a railing admiring the fountain he'd helped to install. The bag had dropped on the floor, he'd knelt down and rummaged inside and found the cool steel. He'd swivelled around, grimacing, ready to let loose on anybody that was around. Yet he hadn't been able to find the trigger. A little girl had looked his way with a smile and then begun giggling. The mother had even joined in but had moved on quickly sensing Newbent wasn't quite with it. He had looked down and realised, in his hands, he had been holding a piece of piping. That had been the point where he had woken up and felt himself pinned to the bed, totally at odds, on some deep level, with his project. Tears came now, he bent and sobbed more than he had since childhood. The thaw had set in irreversibly, Newbent wasn't going to be able to go through with it. The phone rang. He left it for a while and it stopped but then started again. He picked it up. "Bill. It's Janet." Silence. Newbent stared at the wall feeling, now, a regular progression of emotions passing through him. "Are you alright Bill? I'm sorry I haven't called in such a long time. I suppose I was waiting for you, it always seems like I have to make the effort. I had this feeling, I don't know, it must sound silly but I know you've been having troubles and I was worried you didn't have anybody to talk to." He choked back his tears. "No Janet, don't worry about me, I'm coping, business is just a bit slow that's all." http://www.thecouchforum.com/comments.php?id=1997 Sat, 19 May 2012 01:50:40 GMT http://www.thecouchforum.com/link.php?action=detail&id=1997 Why jeans are preferred to be only in black/blue shades? http://www.thecouchforum.com/comments.php?id=1996 Fri, 18 May 2012 04:48:19 GMT http://www.thecouchforum.com/link.php?action=detail&id=1996 Why some persons tend to drag their feet on floor and make noise while walking? I have observed that it does not necessarily relate with body weight. I personally prefer making as less of noise as possible. Even when climbing up the stairs, I prefer creating no sound at all, whereas some folks create a lot of sound. Similarly while dragging chairs on floor some subjects will create a lot of noise and others won't. Then, some persons speak very loudly, even when they're in a personal conversation with someone else in an assembly or in a queue for tickets or in entrance to a hall. I don't like passersby hearing my conversation, be it on phone or with the person who stands next to me in a queue. It's not that I need to keep conversation 'low and private' only when I am surrounded by familiar persons but also when I am amongst complete strangers. My friends don't feel like keeping their voices low when we talk in public and I often ask them for doing so. What do you think this tells about various personality types? Have you observed such behavioral traits? http://www.thecouchforum.com/comments.php?id=1995 Thu, 17 May 2012 04:09:17 GMT http://www.thecouchforum.com/link.php?action=detail&id=1995 I'm curious why and at what point it became culturally popular to smile for photos. Around the time the camera was invented, you will notice that people never smiled for their portraits. Come to think of it, people are rarely smiling in old painted portraits, either. Maybe this is why the Mona Lisa was so famous for her smile. Nowadays you're usually expected to smile for portrait photos (even if you don't feel happy, mind you). I wonder what brought about the change which made smiling for photos more fashionable. Any thoughts? http://www.thecouchforum.com/comments.php?id=1994 Wed, 16 May 2012 23:40:45 GMT http://www.thecouchforum.com/link.php?action=detail&id=1994