Carlos made an extremely interesting observation on my post about consciously using stories. He suggested that the ego is a representati [...]

“It all comes down to appreciation, you become stronger to the extent that you can appreciate what you’re exposed to. You become weaker to the extent that you let it go through you without engaging it.”

So the problem always lies in interpretation: How do I sort out the meaning I want from this story that cannot be reducible to mere ideas? That’s where authority comes in. They make things simpler. “This is the way it is.” Then we forget that there are other interpretations, unless we learn to think for ourselves. That whole Garden of Eden story, I’ve seen it interpreted so many ways, but for fundamentalists it may just have ONE meaning. Really it contains ALL meanings.

I think Stories are like that to us. If we are in control or not, they still have us.

It’s a good idea to read or listen to a fairy tale with total naïveté, letting the magic work on you. Afterwards, you can read a thorough Jungian analysis of the archetypal elements in the tale and this should add some richness, especially if the analysis tale itself is well told (or magically told - this was a gift with Joseph Campbell). In reverse, you can listen to a detailed analysis of a piece of music and then just sit back and enjoy it. The mind may no longer be involved in the analysis but there is nevertheless an added alertness that renders the music just a little more enjoyable.

When it comes to creating stories or music, I think you do get a better result if you combine adherence to some rules with an openness to surprise elements that just pop up.

In the same way that each individual should be free to choose his/her own myths (political or religious stories), so too the artist should be free to choose which constraints will control the work. If an advertisement writer chooses to deliberately exploit archetypes then that is simply the code or formula that works in that genre. It may not be “right” for another genre like poetry.

It’s an interesting question and one we would all do well to think on from time to time.

Hmm, ego is another representation [like real-id]. Maybe that’s why it is so fervently embraced by those of the left hand path / black lodge.

But to answer your question, immersion due to love is far more compelling, imho. I admit bias in this because I love to surf and swim and cause female orgasm, and I feel an affinity with the white lodge. And as far as “the rules of the road” go, well, fuck roads. Constructing a story from intellectual reasoning strikes me as somewhat mechanistic and, you know, them. Hollywood. No surprise which side a comic writer would choose.

Fuck, reading this back I have a real problem with my own use of black / white, left / right, intentional / accidental. These dichotomies are certainly false. That is, there is only one lodge, or one path, with one player manifesting as many. And if there is no “us and them” then there is no “right” way to tell a story, and no “other”. There is not even a “both” or a “neither”.

Ahh, my ego has fallen silent upon hearing this. Problem solved.

But what happens when the Rulers stop protecting the flock? What happens when the Rulers assume the flock exist only for the benefit of the Elites? Then the field gets very tricky. Because on the one hand social stability is a good thing, but on the other hand it cannot exist for long when the system is profoundly unjust. Rulers cannot simply be vampires casually feeding on the lower classes and discarding their lifeless bodies.

At these moments in history (and I believe we are here once again) it becomes time to discard the old stories and begin to write new ones.