I have a story to tell you. It’s a story of how evil entered the world.
This story takes place in the past, at a time when human beings grew separate from each other as different individual species, like types of flowers. These humans were quite similar to the humans that currently populate the earth, with one major difference. Each group was born with the ability to experience only one emotion. For example, there was a group that knew only joy, one that knew only sadness, one that knew only compassion and another that knew only fear. Each of these groups, we’ll call them tribes, adapted to their environment using what they knew and only that. They knew the place they were born and only that place. They would spend their lives living in harmony with the individuals of their same type, never leaving and never knowing anyone but their own. Over time, however, each tribe steadily grew in number, requiring more space to live, expanding like drops of ink on a surface of water. As they grew, the elders of each tribe sensed that a change was about to come. Their borders would soon meet with the borders of other species. One elder, from the tribe of Curiosity, decided to go on a journey to see what she could learn about this sense of forthcoming collision.
The first group she came across was the tribe of Joy. She was welcomed with joy upon arrival and brought in to meet the elder of the Joy tribe. Upon connecting, each was able to describe to the other what made them who they were, their stories of Joy and Curiosity. After exchanging these stories, a seed of each other’s emotion was planted in the other’s heart; the people of Joy now understood curiosity and vice versa. A decision was then made that the two elders would continue on to see what other tribes they could find. They traveled far and wide, eventually exchanging their stories with the tribes of Sadness, Compassion, Wonder, Anger, Love and a variety of others. Each meeting resulted in an exchange of stories, and with that exchange, a seed of each emotion was planted in each heart. By this time the travelling band had become a group of much more emotionally complex individuals, yet they were still able to live in harmony.
There was only one tribe left still living in seclusion. This was the tribe of Fear. The elder of Fear had also sensed the forthcoming collision of tribes, but had counselled her tribe to hide, because she was afraid. A time came, however, when they could no longer hide and were forced to accept the encounter with the travelling band of elders. Because her tribe was dominated by fear, they were constantly scanning the horizon and checking their borders, in an attempt to protect their land. They saw the travelling band approaching and immediately told their elder. The Fear elder told them all to hide, for she was afraid of what might happen upon meeting with the strange group of beings coming her way. She retreated to her home and waited for the group to approach. The group of elders approached the same way they had all approached each other throughout their journey. Of course, here, they sensed a difference. There was nobody to be found. Finally they arrived at the Fear elder’s home, and entered, expecting to find nothing. Here they met the Fear elder, huddled in the corner of her space. The group, led primarily by Compassion and Curiosity, approached Fear and encouraged her to share with them her story, as they all had. Fear was overwhelmed with fear but was eventually able to describe to them what that felt like. As she spoke her story, the others slowly understood, as the seed of fear was planted in their hearts. When she finished her story, and her seed had been planted, the group of elders, afraid of what they now felt, begged her to take it back.
“But of course, it was too late. For once a story is told, it cannot be called back. Once told, it is loose in the world” (King 10).
The End.
One quick comment on this assignment as my story is already quite long. I learned this week that for many, current lifestyles make it difficult to even find the time to stop and listen to a story such as this one. In attempts to tell others my story, I was amazed at how difficult it was to be able to get through its entirety without interruption of some kind. I knew I would learn something by the end of this week, that is what I learned. We tell each other stories all of the time: stories about our world, our interactions, our current situations. Do we need to make more time for stories of a different kind? Perhaps.
Sierra Gale
Thoughts on Assignment 1:4
Works Cited
Cherry, Kendra. “Theories of Emotion.” About.com Health. About.com. 20 June 2015. Web. 31 January 2016.
Lennon, John. “Quotable Quote.” Goodreads. Goodreads Inc.. 17 Nov. 2015. Web. 31 January 2016.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Toronto: Anansi Press. 2003. Print.
Hi Sierra
Thanks for your story! If there was a prehistoric version of Inside Out, this would be it. I’m really glad you pinpointed “fear” as the starting point to evil. I promise you I’m not a film addict, but movie quotes are all that is coming to mind today, so here’s one from Yoda: “Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Hollywood references aside, however, it seems to me that your story speaks to the question you pose at the end. You shared how it was difficult to be able to get through the story without some kind of interruption, and I think very often this interruption is psychological. Often what prevents us from truly understanding one another is fear, and we play the busyness card as an excuse. Two of the most common barriers to communications are emotional barriers and cultural differences, and I think these are indicative of this fear of the Other that the Elder in your story passes on to the other tribes. This is especially relevant today, where movements like BlackLivesMatter have driven race issues to the forefront of our national dialogue. Sometimes, it can be scary listening to the suffering of another culture—and of our own part in perpetuating it. So to offer my two cents to your question, yes, it’s vital to make time to listen to other stories outside of our own context, but just as if not more importantly, we need to be actively gauging our responses to them.
Thanks,
Beatrice
http://www.skillsyouneed.com/ips/barriers-communication.html
Bea, thanks so much for your comment! As I was reading it I was thinking “wow, she is saying things that I am thinking all the time, just so much clearer.” Also, thanks for the link, there is a lot of information there. I always find it so weird to try and categorize how we interact with each other using text and bulleted points. Although, I find it can be helpful to be able to see the mumbled, jumbled everything that happens within us when we interact with one another, somewhat simplified in a collection of information like they have there.
You’re comment about playing the busyness card as a way to avoid psychological fear of a certain conversation or discomfort is something I’ve been thinking about lately. I’ve noticed that sometimes people will grab onto an unrelated aspect of a conversation (like appropriate use of language, terms, or political correctness), out of fear, in an effort to sidetrack the conversation and avoid talking about what is really trying to be fleshed out. It’s as if we can sense that it’s going to make us uncomfortable. The conversation then becomes about whether or not we should use the word waitress or not, for example, instead of a more deeper issue at hand, like women’s equality in the workplace.
You’ve really brought a helpful perspective to me with your comment. Thank you, I really do appreciate it.
Hi Sierra,
This was an amazing story, what a great way to get the point across of how powerful words and stories can be. With your use of different tribes and emotions it made it simple to imagine what it would be like to suddenly understand what fear felt like. As well as the fact that once you have felt that emotion it sticks with you in some sense. I guess this can be said for many emotions, kind of a once bitten twice shy kind of thing. Some things are hard to forget and words can really stick with us for, well, ever.
I have to agree with you on the idea of how we are constantly telling people our story,
especially these days with social media, but are these the stories that really count? I have young children and I often read to them but rarely just sit and tell them a story. When I asked them if I could tell them one they got super excited. It was interesting because they had so many questions after the story, it’s almost as if because it wasn’t written on paper and came from my imagination they could dig deeper and learn more as we talked. In the end I found it was a real learning process for all of us.
Thanks again for your story, I really enjoyed it.
Danielle
Danielle, I’m so glad you enjoyed it! That’s so interesting to hear about your childrens’ response to your own storytelling. The idea that they would respond differently because of an ability to tell that it was something you created yourself is fascinating. I have found that whenever I am sharing an idea or a story that has come from my imagination I feel an energy or passion around it and that passion comes out in how I express myself. I think people can often pick up on that. Maybe it has to do with the sharing of that excitement and an ability to transmit it to another person. Maybe that’s what keeps their attention.
Hi Sierra,
I really liked your story and thought your reflection at the end was really neat! I think you’re right, storytelling is a lost art and as you indicated, a lot of that has to do with how it really demands our full attention. We still can share and engage in stories through music and film and TV and books but the oral traditions and performative nature of storytelling are really something that we don’t do anymore for some reason! Technology definitely plays a role in that but I think the extensive nature and variety of media’s we can engage with at our own convenience is a real luxury and a positive thing. Hopefully, the rise of technology doesn’t spell the death of oral storytelling.
Simon, thanks so much for your comment. I agree with you that the extent of media tools at our fingertips are a luxury and can definitely have a positive impact. It seems to be a battle back and forth in my brain about how I feel about that however. If anything, it does make it easier in some cases to connect with each other on things as basic as shared laughs at a youtube video, or topics of discussion around the dinner table influenced by things like twitter and rapidly updated news articles. What I worry about, and have seen in myself, is a loss of imagination because of this. I often find myself in conversations of regurgitated information instead of really inspired, creative thoughts and opinions. It’s so easy to take from the massive abundance of information out there and re-distribute it as a story instead of reaching in and creating something of our own to tell. It’s a great challenge to take on for ourselves maybe? I’ve started doing this lately, stopping before I tell a story and asking myself what is my motivation to tell this story? Is it original? Ego-driven? Will it be helpful to whoever I am telling it to? Or is it just a way to string words together to fill space and sound like I know what I’m talking about…
Hi Sierra,
I really loved your story. It’s an interesting idea to connote complexity of emotion with evil. Idyllic worlds are often depicted as simple because I don’t think a complex world can exist without evil. Even if we rid our world of all the people who are intent on hurting others (the murderers, Hitlers, rapists, etc. of the world), we would still end up with evil because we all do the wrong thing sometimes, either because we don’t understand the consequences of our actions or because it is the easier thing to do.
One thing that got me curious — you didn’t think anger could also be a source of evil?
Caitlin
Caitlin, I’m glad you enjoyed it! I apologize for my delayed response. I actually pondered for awhile what I wanted to do about anger. In the end, I decided that anger doesn’t have to be a source of evil. Sometimes anger can be a motivator for positive change, if harnessed and expressed in an appropriate way. It’s a tricky one because so often our anger gets outside of our control and can then lead to actions that could be considered evil. I think, though, that often this type of anger is actually a result of a more deep-seated fear. Because of this, I decided to use it in my story as I did.