Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.
Interpretation
Stories have the power to overcome fear and expand our emotional capacity.
In this quote, Ben Okri emphasizes the transformative power of storytelling. By engaging with stories, whether through reading or sharing, individuals can confront their fears and broaden their understanding of compassion and empathy, ultimately nurturing their emotional growth and resilience.
In practice
During a motivational speech to encourage students to read more.
One human life is deeper than the ocean. Strange fishes and sea-monsters and mighty plants live in the rock-bed of our spirits. The whole of human history is an undiscovered continent deep in our souls. There are dolphins, plants that dream, magic birds inside us. The sky is inside us. The earth is in us.
Our time here is magic! It's the only space you have to realize whatever it is that is beautiful, whatever is true, whatever is great, whatever is potential, whatever is rare, whatever is unique, in. It's the only space.
Don't despair too much if you see beautiful things destroyed, if you see them perish. Because the best things are always growing in secret.
I began my writing life as a poet, so poetry has always been fundamental. I evolved from poetry to journalism to stories to novels. But poetry was always there.
The acknowledged legislators of the world take the world as given. They dislike mysteries, for mysteries cannot be coded, or legislated, and wonder cannot be made into law. And so these legislators police the accepted frontiers of things.
We can still astonish the gods in humanity_x000D_ _x000D_ And be the stuff of future legends,_x000D_ _x000D_ If we but dare to be real,_x000D_ _x000D_ And have the courage to see_x000D_ _x000D_ That this is the time to dream_x000D_ _x000D_ The best dream of them all.
It's only words... unless they're true.
Two very simple rules: _x000D_ A. You don't have to write. _x000D_ B. You can't do anything else _x000D_ The rest comes of itself.
There are so many men and women who hold no distinctive positions but whose contribution towards the development of society has been enormous.
If you haven't cried deeply a number of times, your meditation hasn't really begun.
He who knows no hardships will know no hardihood. He who faces no calamity will need no courage. Mysterious though it is, the characteristics in human nature which we love best grow in a soil with a strong mixture of troubles.
Self-pity is a dead-end road. You make the choice to drive down it. It's up to you to decide to stay parked there or to turn around and drive out.
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