Tea at Trianon: Storytelling Makes Us Human

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, July 12, 2019

Storytelling Makes Us Human

From Cryssa Bazos:

Writers spin stories out of a void, creating characters and worlds that exist on paper and flourish in our minds. We share stories to understand our world and one another. It is no surprise, then, that myths and legends have been passed down through the generations. These stories have taught us courage, empathy, and helped make sense of a baffling world.

It is a uniquely human quality to imagine what lies beyond our immediate perceptions and postulate theories for may be out there—or imagine ravenous zombies rising from the earth and spawning an apocalypse. Chimps have somehow missed out on that magical 1% and they are unable to imagine an alternative reality where they rule the world and humans entertain them in zoos.

Unfortunately in this insanely busy world, where we are driven to increase our productivity, the first thing that suffers is our creative expression. We may as well be ants with a singleminded goal to keep the supply chain intact. The creative brain needs time to percolate, to lose itself in a daydream before it can do its thing. (Read more.)