Just came across a very smart essay by a woman named Helena Sheehan, Story, Myth, Dream and Drama. In fact, the beginning of it is so good that I’m going to paste in big chunks of it to save them for later.

What is it about stories and the acting out of stories in drama that holds such fascination for us? Through the ages, an endless stream of narrative and enactment of narrative has filled some basic need in us and stimulated a seemingly insatiable desire for more of the same. We seem to have a limitless capacity for exchanging experiences, for filling our lives with representations of other people’s lives, for coming to terms with the problems and possibilities of life through a vicarious involvement in other lives, for incorporating the experience of others into our own and vice versa.

But what exactly are stories? What sorts of representations do they embody? What sorts of involvements do they elicit? A story or a narrative is an account of events. But it is not just any sort of account of any events. It is a selection and ordering of events into a meaningful pattern. It is consequential sequence of events.

… To a considerable extent, we interpret the world, ourselves and other people through stories. We are continually perceiving, describing and detailing with new people and new situations through remembered images from past stories. We are constantly exposed to new stories, varying types of stories, conflicting stories. Much cognitive and emotive activity is actually a sorting out and weighing of stories. The more integrated, the more intellectually sophisticated and emotionally mature we are, the more actively we are ordering and re-ordering the details of such knowledge and experience as comes our way into a coherent narrative of the story of the world, the story of mankind, the story of our own time and place and the story of our own lives within the context of these other stories. The further this is pushed, the more the thrust is towards weaving all stories into one ultimate story.

She goes on into a bunch of stuff about mythology and drama, and it’s pretty good - but that part above is the stuff I’m most interested in.