Garrgh, this: " Iwonder if, these days, the mind might find itself in a similar fix – designed to work in small, localized settings, with input from a couple of dozen people we know and care about. And then here comes the world, via media, and the poor nervous system starts responding sympathetically, wanting to help, to solve, to interv…
Garrgh, this: " Iwonder if, these days, the mind might find itself in a similar fix – designed to work in small, localized settings, with input from a couple of dozen people we know and care about. And then here comes the world, via media, and the poor nervous system starts responding sympathetically, wanting to help, to solve, to intervene, suffering at other people’s hardships, as it should (as it is designed to do), feeling outraged…but because of the shift in scale, it’s being asked to do more than it can realistically do, and the result is agitation and, sometimes (in my experience) despair." I think this is so true, and that's where stories are a salve and why they have to focus in on the specific, the detail, and through the grain of sand reveal something of the universe to us, because we can understand so little, which is both our flaw as a species and (I hope) our saving grace. The world is too big for our little brains but stories become a filtration system for us - both in by stories we hear and read and out in the stories we tend and grow and put out on the page. Thank you for all of these words.
Garrgh, this: " Iwonder if, these days, the mind might find itself in a similar fix – designed to work in small, localized settings, with input from a couple of dozen people we know and care about. And then here comes the world, via media, and the poor nervous system starts responding sympathetically, wanting to help, to solve, to intervene, suffering at other people’s hardships, as it should (as it is designed to do), feeling outraged…but because of the shift in scale, it’s being asked to do more than it can realistically do, and the result is agitation and, sometimes (in my experience) despair." I think this is so true, and that's where stories are a salve and why they have to focus in on the specific, the detail, and through the grain of sand reveal something of the universe to us, because we can understand so little, which is both our flaw as a species and (I hope) our saving grace. The world is too big for our little brains but stories become a filtration system for us - both in by stories we hear and read and out in the stories we tend and grow and put out on the page. Thank you for all of these words.