3:5 Our Sunflower and a Boy, How Evil Was Created
I have a great story to tell you,
the story of how evil was created.
The universe was born in an orb within another universe. Worlds are born inside of each other, in random places no one knows about. For our universe in particular, it started with a very special sunflower.
The sunflower always tried to reach for the sun, and she expended so much effort and love for the sun that the pure intentions in her heart solidified into a crystal orb held in place by yellow petals. The sunflower fell in love with the sun, and her love created a spark in the universe: The Big Bang. As her love grew, so did the world. Her love created the excitement of electrons, the cohesion between atoms, the first forms of life.
One day, a little boy was playing in the field and picked our sunflower, the creator of the universe. He took her to his home to show his father. “Look dad, look how beautiful this sunflower is! She has a crystal in the middle.”
“She is indeed beautiful. You better keep safe the things you love”, his father said.
So the boy put our sunflower in his room, in a vase, a place where she was unable to see the sun. Our sunflower cried in agony because she could not move. She had no power. Although the boy loved her dearly and told her stories each day, she grew to hate the boy who took her from what she loved most. This hatred created chaos in her heart, but her heart was our very universe itself… So her hatred began to seep in to the life she had created, birthing evil. Some people held so much of the early love and spark within the sunflower, that they weren’t profoundly influenced by this new chaos, but others absorbed the hate and began to enjoy evil itself. The Sunflower’s heart was shaken up, swirls of love and hate creating the current balance of good and evil in the universe.
Once you have told a story, you can never take it back. So, be careful of the stories you tell, AND the stories you listen to.
I discovered multiple things while writing this story. 1) it is incredibly easy to create a story, and anyone can create it. 2) There are many ways to tell a story. There are pieces one can add versus leave out, different angles with which one can look at the same thing. All these have an influence on meaning of the story and how a reader will interpret it. I also realized that when people tell stories about an event, they are often biased, and different people view different things. The story that is told about reality has a profound influence on how people think, but it is important to recognize that the story doesn’t represent reality itself, only one lens of reality.
Hi Gabrielle,
I loved how simple your story was! It truly shows that anyone can create a story and that stories do not have to be verbose to be meaningful and impactful. I thought your story was quite similar to mine, in that the evil that was released into the world came from a nonhuman: yours came from a sunflower, and mine came from a tiger. This was interesting to me because in both our stories, the evil is a result of the frustration of some other (non-human) entity due to being held captive and/or against their wishes. In your case, the sunflower was being held indoors away from the sun and in mine, the tiger was being held captive to perform at circuses. Writing my story made me reflect on our impact as humans on animals, and reading yours made me further ponder how we as a species are negatively affecting the environment.
I also appreciated how your story portrayed the world you created from both the perspective of the boy and the sunflower as well. It paints a more complete picture of the world as compared to only telling the same story from a single point of view.
Thanks for your comment! I told the story from the view of the sunflower because I think many stories and are human-centered. I think it’s important for humans not to devalue animals or plants as any less than humans, simply because they have different experiences.
I appreciated your story as well 🙂 I thought it was very vivid.
-Gaby
Hi Gabi,
Great story! I like the way you projected how the universe and our world were created. I also find it interesting how you intervened the science terms like Big Bang, atoms, and electrons, and the concepts of the Native storytelling. King points out in the first chapter in The Truth About Stories that in Native stories, “the world is at peace, and the pivotal concern is not with the ascendancy of good over evil but with the issue of balance” (24). In your story, the universe is balanced initially by the good and evil in the sunflower. While the balance is maintained, the evil is latent. But the balance is very fragile and once removed, the evil comes out to this world.
My interpretation of the moral of your story is that we should be aware of and learn not only what is right and wrong for us but also for everything that is around us. Otherwise, unknowingly and unintentionally, we can spark the fire by ruining someone’s well-being. As the audience receives this same story in different ways and interpretations, I wonder if the message in your story was close to what I got.
Thank you,
Joanne
Hi Joanne!
That is an interesting interpretation and makes complete sense haha. I wasn’t thinking of those specific ideas when writing this, but I’m glad my story conveyed those ideas to you as well. In the story, I was trying to convey that
1) Humans aren’t the center of the world
2) Oftentimes harm is created accidentally and naively. Someone may not have had negative intentions, but unintentionally hurt someone else.
3) Evil is oftentimes a reaction to being hurt
4) People often react to being hurt by creating hurt, perpetuating a cycle
5) It’s important not hate or blame another because of something they did unintentionally
and lastly,
6) Everyone has their own beliefs, goals, and drives and act based on these. Oftentimes, people’s paths conflict with each other and they don’t understand, as a result, they misunderstand another’s intentions. It’s important not to impose one’s idea of their self in evaluating other people’s selves.
-Gaby
Wow Gaby!!
I found your story to be incredibly visceral. Most children know what it is to pick a flower or a weed, or to step on an ant or a snail. As we grow older our curiosity as to what happens when you kill a living thing by picking it, turns into a from of giving on romantic dates or funerals even, which is ironic. What I love is that the Creator is an unsuspecting peaceful organism, a flower. Do you draw any parallels between the seemingly ordinariness of the flower and it’s need for the love of the sun with the nurturing aspect that forms a child into an adult?
Also I really love that you are travelling the world and studying at the same time. If I could do my undergrad all over again I would find a way to do it the way you are. Being in an environment that fosters your well-being and creativity and curiosity is amazing. Go Gabby!
Hi Sarah!
Hmmm… in response to your question, I wasn’t intending to draw any parallels, but that is an interesting metaphor. I was thinking along the lines of: A sunflower is called a sunflower, and that’s so beautiful because it sounds like sunflowers crave sun.
-Gaby
( PS. Thank you haha
Go Sarah!! )
Hi Gaby!
I was so excited to read your blog about how evil came into the world. It was the title of your story that drew me in. Your concept of thinking about how the sunflower represents a lover of the sun which lead to the big bang was very creative. I would be curious to know how your story came to be? How did you think to develop a hatred between then sunflower and its possessor?
I would have enjoyed a bit more character development of the young boy, as he plays a key role in the introduction of evil.
I completely agree with you about how easy it was for me to write this story! I was concerned that I would lack the creativity to personalize the story towards my style but it turned out not to be an issue. My story evolved to the listener as well.
Thank you for sharing your story & have a great week!
Hi Alexandra!
Thanks for your comment! Yeah, I agree. The story would have been fuller if I had written more about the boy and allowed the reader to connect to him.
As for how my story came to be, I started with the concept of a universe inside a sunflower, but needed a way to create evil so I decided something needed to harm her somehow. Then I realized she could be in love with the sun, and a naive boy could pick her because he thought she was beautiful. The rest of the details were filled in along the way by the first few ideas that came up in my mind. The Big Bang and atoms came up because I have been thinking about physics and astronomy lately and have had a few conversations about these fields haha.
-Gaby
(Have a great week too!)
Hi! What I really enjoyed the most about your blog post, aside from the great story itself, is at the end when you concluded that a story doesn’t represent reality but a certain aspect of that reality. Now I found this really insightful because after reading that one line, I too had come to that conclusion but didn’t know how to formulate that idea. I had come to the conclusion that the stories we all wrote about represent some part of ourselves, what we believe causes evil, what moral we value and so on. But unfortunately I had come to the conclusion at the back of my mind that these stories represented everything the writer believes about evil or morality. But you reminded me that, of course this isn’t or in actuality, can’t be the only way you view evil. Evil is too broad and great of a subject to define how we think about it as an individual in a short fable that we made. It is a story and a representation but not the whole or only thing.
As a side note, this reminded me of a ted talk from Chimamanda Adichie, “the dangers of a single story” (linked below). Where she speaks of how stories become dangerous only when they are the only way we view or know of the world, so we should always view, not only people but stories in different lenses.
https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_ngozi_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story?language=en
Hi Nargiza! Thanks for your comment 🙂
Yeah! Exactly! I think there are many realities or truths that occur simultaneously, and different people focus on different aspects of the whole reality. I like to take seriously the arguments authors are putting forth regardless of what they believe or if they’re biased in some way. It’s important to take it seriously because their ideas have some truth or reveal that an aspect of reality made them think that way. In conclusion, it’s simply a different angle’s take on reality.
-Gaby
Hi Gabrielle,
I absolutely loved your story! I really appreciated that the love and evil/hate were felt simultaneously and created a balance of good/evil in the universe. I felt that it kept a certain positivity, even when speaking about the origin of evil. For me, it reminds me that without evil we would not get to see all of the good for what it is. I also really enjoyed that you chose a sunflower as your main subject. For starters, I think that the sun is a great symbol of joy, so the sunflower was robbed of her joy. This is something that evil can do. Also, since sunflowers always face the sun, it is like she always tries to look for the “good” in things. The dichotomy of good and evil is complicated, so having the sunflower struggle with her feelings is a very real way of showing moral or ethical struggles. The boy also innocently picked the flower, not knowing the pain he would cause, so he is an example of someone that tried to do good, to keep her safe, but didn’t know the pain he was causing. I feel like I could go on for days thinking of metaphors that your story made me think of…well done!
Hi Lauren!
Thank you for your comment!
I was trying to place many metaphors when writing this, although you thought of so many more that I hadn’t even thought of. It’s a talent to be able to make so many connections to different meanings from a single reference point. You’re probably a very creative learner 🙂
I am not sure I understand the concept of evil: Pain, harm, anger? Or a reaction to these feelings? If we go further, a desire to harm others? The sunflower was robbed of her joy by someone who didn’t intend her harm in that he had no negative intentions. However, he may have realized that the sunflower wouldn’t live for long if he picked her, or that sunflowers didn’t have feelings…, but it may have only been a minor thought for the boy.
How the boy was taught to think, or ultimately learned to think, did not consider the life of the sunflower. The stories we’re taught or create for ourselves can harm others, sometimes unintentionally and sometimes rationalized(through socialization or through ourselves). Many times, harm is done unintentionally, but this hurt triggers an angry response that causes pain towards others. And oftentimes, when someone causes harm knowing that another might get hurt, it is rationalized to such an extent that they don’t think they’re doing something bad or that bad is somehow justified. I’m not sure how to define evil…