What's the story?
When I say,"Tell me about it", I mean it.
Do you, like me, remember a time when there were Old People who would show up on television and in newspapers, in full on Cassandra mode? They’d be talking about how video games would make crime and violence acceptable. Or how showing casual sex on television would lead to the downfall of society?
I sometimes wonder if they weren’t at least a little correct. I mean…yeah.
We know all these things existed before television, scriptwriters and computer games. The human species has never been angelic or even, a lot of the time, very nice to each other. Too many abuse power, strength, and those they perceive as weaker. Always have, and probably always will.
Very often this happens because, as the saying goes, “hurt people hurt people”. We understand - because we experience - the impact of nurture in the presence of even the sweetest nature. Throughout time parents have been blamed, and often correctly, for how someone “turns out”.
In this world of 24hr availability, global media you carry wherever you go, we’re also understanding that our children and young people are nurtured by outside influences in a way that, for example, my generation were not. Books and occasional television? Sure. Teachers and friends? Sure. Family? Of course. Maybe a religious community if you belong(ed) to one, but not All The World, All Its Evil, All The Time. I know I’m stating the obvious, but is it any wonder that we’re in a mental health crisis? And it’s not just the young ones; it’s all of us.
The fallout from this normalisation of everything from the horrific to the seriously-not-recommended is a) happening now, and b) only going to get worse as it becomes generational. Already, too many people can look at the most heinous things on a phone screen and not look away. We’re becoming numb.
Just to be clear, I know that humans are also capable of the most wonderful things. We are truly remarkable creatures, and whilst I wouldn’t want to start guessing at ratios, I do believe a very large percentage of us are well-intentioned, kind, generous, loving and desirous of a world where everyone just gets to live with a degree of contentment and peace. Even if it’s just because we can’t be bothered to spend time thinking about what other people are up to and how we should be feeling about it. At this point, disinterest is starting to feel like a virtue.
Humans have a negativity bias: “The propensity to attend to, learn from, and use negative information far more than positive information.” 1 The things that scare us, threaten us, endanger us, sicken us, are likely to have a stronger and more lasting impact on our thinking and behaviour. It’s survival, right? See also: toxic.
I can’t help but think most of those things come wrapped up in a human body. We’ve come a long way in eliminating all the others - for better or worse - and here’s where the oldest dilemma comes in, do we just keep defending and fighting and killing? Or do we attempt to change ourselves so that we’re no longer a threat to each other, even though we may get trampled while we try? Punishment or rehabilitation? Fact is, some people are never going to change, and they thrive by understanding that good, kind people will likely not fight back. It took me far too long to really believe that.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not cynical. I still believe in humans because we are part of something way bigger and way smarter, and ultimately we will be folded back into that and given another chance (I’m talking about the living Earth and the multiverse, by the way). Even the evilest man could one day be part of a beautiful tree. The reverse is also true, but let’s not go there. Not today.
Too much has been normalised, and there’s only so far we can undo it. The worst offenders care nothing for laws and contracts, regulations and agreements. There are brave souls who willingly sacrifice their own peace to man the barricades against these horrors, but while I think most of the able would be prepared to do an occasional short shift on watch, we really just want to go home and be with the beings and things that we love. To be able to ignore the battles and the violence. The freedom to do so is called privilege now, and that’s right. Also a mix of good fortune and choices. A lottery win. That guy who just won £23mill on the Euromillions didn’t knock down an old lady, kick a toddler, and shoot a rhinoceros to do it, he just picked out some birthday dates and paid for a ticket. Life’s like that. What we do with our winnings is what counts.
How can we tip these loaded scales back towards positivity? As someone once said: You can’t be what you can’t see. You can’t do what you can’t view.
Okay, I made up the second bit but it made me laugh. Also, it may be true.
I was going to list some artists and writers whose vision qualifies as Utopian but you can look them up. I had a couple in mind and when I went to find more so you’d think I’m really intelligent, I found that these good folk go back beyond history and well into our present times. Are they, or have they been, what has kept us from destroying each other? I like to believe - and find it easy to do so - that each in their way made a solid contribution. That thanks to them, when someone stepped up to complete another tour of duty on the barricades, or even volunteered to make team sandwiches for an hour, first Saturday of the month, they did so because they’d seen or heard or felt a world where things were better. Kinder. More beautiful. More peaceful.
This post is my story for myself. The one that reminds me that humans are magic because we relate so strongly through words spoken and danced and written and sung. It’s to remind me that my lifelong (and probably even before that, given my mother’s love of reading and my father’s passion for music) love of a good story, is a strength. A resource. An invaluable gift. A lottery win. That if I’m feeling the pull to write about imagined worlds that connect to our own, I should do it. Worldbuilding, for real. Even if only one other person connects with it and carries some back into this layer of reality, there is value in telling a story. In attempting to create a positivity bias through delight, wonder, laughter and deep emotion.
Write your fiction, your music, your comedy, your screenplays and your picture books. Compose music, and poems. Dance, paint, carve, cook, sew, film, create a really restorative home. Share that story over a bowl of soup, and do your best to get a laugh, or gasp in wonder at how it unfolds.
When power is concentrated in the hands of the undeserving few, it can all feel a bit pointless, can’t it? So remember that the most beautiful thinking and enlightened examination of possibility happens first in our imagination. To dream up something better and share it with the people around you, in whatever way feels right, is righteous work, my dude.
What do you think? What story are you telling? How are you telling it? I’d love to know.
When I was a cub reporter on an evening newspaper in the early 70s, I started a file on how the rise of violent movies would only create more violence. I did this in the off-chance that I would become a features writer on the paper. Apart from a month in the features department as part of my indentures, I never achieved that and I lost the file.
In answer to your question, what am I creating, my answer is to unpick stories from ancient history and retell them with an exposure of the fallacies of those who lived with violent intentions and highlight those that saw a more meaningful alternative approach. Even if it cost them their lives. Something I cannot do myself, but I totally get the story-telling thing. I’m no hero, but I am a writer.
Thank you for your continued inspiration on the subject!
Thank you for articulating so much of what's been swirling around my brain. I've always been a hopeful person, but even for me, the current world is difficult to process, let alone live in. You reminded me that, as much as the tyranns and greedy people try to rule the world, I think "a world where everyone just gets to live with a degree of contentment and peace" is still what most people want. xo