Recently, I have come to understand that something can be important, without it being a fact. For me this applies primarily to my beliefs, understandings, and assumptions about what I actually believe.
For instance, I had been developing a problem with history. Growing up, I believed history was one of the easiest things to study and learn, based on the fact that it has all already happened, and all I had to do was remember it. But as I got older, and history started changing and the concept of different interpretations, and knowledge of how much influence the person actually writing the history had on what was passed forward to future generations, history became something to be wary of.
I became unable to turn my back on history for one minute without realizing that something I thought about history was in fact wrong, misleading, incomplete, or simply skewed a little off target. So I stopped trusting. I couldn't believe anything happened they way people said it happened.
After doing some reading, some soul searching, and spending a lot of time thinking about it, I now have a different approach. The stories that are told as history, while they may not be factual, ARE important. It is important to know that something happened. It is important to realize that it is part of what shaped your world. The way we THINK things happen shape the world just as much, if not more, than the way things ACTUALLY happen.
We humans need stories. We need it about the past, the present, the future, ourselves, the world around us, and things beyond our own world. And whether or not a thing actually happens does not take away from the historical and actual impact of something.
To sum it all up. Stories are important because we make them important.
1 comment:
I like the post, though I'm unsure I agree with its summation. Two, well, stories spring to mind.
1) There is a fable about Truth, who went around trying to get people to like him and stuff, but no one paid him any attention until he met Story, who suggested that truth dress himself up in a costume. When he did so, he found himself able to make lots of friends! (It's a little better when it's not paraphrased off the top of my head, but that's all you get right now.)
2) Barbara Nicolosi (big-name Catholic in Hollywood) once came to my college and gave a very good talk. She said at one point, "People remember stories. I guarantee you, you will not remember anything I tell you this evening - except this story." And I'll be damned if I don't have a fierce love for the Blessed Carmelites of Compiegne, but couldn't tell you a thing about what else she said.
In short: stories do have a very real purpose. They can express truth without expressing fact (which can be a tricky thing indeed).
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