It is a skill we learn early, the art of inventing stories to explain away the fearful scared strangeness of the world. Storytelling and make-believe, like war and agriculture, are among the arts of self-defense, and all of them are ways of enclosing otherness and claiming ownership.
Interpretation
The quote highlights the human inclination to use storytelling as a means to make sense of the world and alleviate fear.
William Kittredge's quote emphasizes the innate human ability to create narratives that help us cope with the uncertainties and fears we face in life. Storytelling serves not only as a creative outlet but also as a fundamental method of understanding our surroundings, framing our experiences, and exerting control over the unfamiliar aspects of existence. Just as war and agriculture can be seen as means of defense and control, so too can storytelling act as a powerful tool for personal empowerment and understanding.
In practice
In a motivational speech about creativity, one might use this quote to illustrate the importance of storytelling in overcoming challenges.
We tell stories to talk out the trouble in our lives, trouble otherwise so often so unspeakable. It is one of our main ways of making our lives sensible. Trying to live without stories can make us crazy. They help us recognize what we believe to be most valuable in the world, and help us identify what we hold demonic.
Poetry most often communicates emotions, not directly, but by creating imaginatively the grounds for those emotions. It therefore communicates something more than the emotion; only by means of that something more does it communicate the emotion at all.
I have a very healthy relationship to my work, and I find that if a scene is working, no matter how intense it is, you have the catharsis on screen, and you can let it go. I think it's, if at the end of the day you feel like you haven't cracked it, that's when you go home and it's more difficult to switch off.
I don't think everyone wants to create the great American novel, but we all have a dream of telling our stories-of realizing what we think, feel, and see before we die. Writing is a path to meet ourselves and become intimate.
Every film should have its own world, a logic and feel to it that expands beyond the exact image that the audience is seeing.
If I could say with words what my dances express, I wouldn’t have a reason to dance.
That's the kind of music I want SoulBird to represent: music with intelligence and heart, music that moves people in their souls and their bodies. Music with wings.
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