The Thirteenth Tale Part One

so I bought this book yesterday called "The Thirteenth Tale" by Dianne Setterfield. I put part one in the title line becuase i'm pretty sure I'll refer back to this book a few times in the future, its got good ideas to pensate on without actually loosing ones mind running in imaginative circles. From page 5- and the paragraph that captured my heart and my money:

"My gripe is not with lovers of the truth but with truth herself. What succor, waht consolation is there in truth, compared to a story. What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails? No. When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don't expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking saftey of a lie." -Vida Winters, eccentric author/main character

I like it. I like the observation that stories loosen fear's hold of us by drawing us into a world of wonder where we are safe. Or so we think. We operate under this notion that ideas only live on one level, that being the intellectual. But I dont think this is true. Our minds are never actually under our control, if counciling taught me one thing that was it. Our minds have lives of their own. Ideas and fantasies never run parallel to the real world but intersect it, penetrate it, and therefore inherently change 'reality.' We do not exist without stories, and the stories cannot exist without us. Myths and fantasies allow us a safe creative space to let reality flow out through a different censor. We can explore avenues of the every day we fear or distrust. Or we can explore facets of the divine that make our blood curl and a knot form in the pit of humanity's collective stomach. But it's just a fiction? Right? No harm done? Perhaps in some sense, fiction is that which is really real. Reality sheds the curtain of fear and we behold ourselves, naked in our terrible and beautiful glory. And truth becomes apparent, but we name it lie because we cannot face its consequenes. We shrug, close the book, and go about our daily stories as though we had never gazed upon ourselves at all. That's the power of the myths. Or maybe, it's just a story.

I'll see you in the morning, or the moonlight, whichever comes first. -love, anna