Stories are the collective imagination. They are to community what dreams are to individuals — the way we process the world around us. Yet we’ve been coming to them with a scarcity mindset: settle on a few and hold them up as holy rather than revelling in many and taking what we feel like. The value of a story isn’t the moral some author puts into it but the meaning created by the audience — the decision of whether their interpretation is true. Yet stories have become increasingly more expensive as books become beautiful luxury purchases and movie budgets soar. We need more stories worth less rather than fewer worth more. We need a glut on the market so that we know they’re just stories while still luxuriating in them.
Interesting point. I wonder if it isn't about access. People who do read want really complex and long stories printed in beautifully constructed books which has made them expensive and less accessible to the average person. Meanwhile we just went through a really well-received golden age of television based on subscription companies willing to go into debt for subscribers that competed with reading time for non-reading-enthusiasts. Now that TV has to be more sustainable the quality is going down and the subscription costs are going up. For someone just looking to pass the time memes and reels are just around. Like who's writing Gen X and Millennial versions of old white dude nazi-hunter books? Used to be there was a free Cussler or Grisham within eyesight to be had anywhere you went. I think what we really need is a National Lampoon in print so they're just lying around and accessible.
Stories are the collective imagination. They are to community what dreams are to individuals — the way we process the world around us. Yet we’ve been coming to them with a scarcity mindset: settle on a few and hold them up as holy rather than revelling in many and taking what we feel like. The value of a story isn’t the moral some author puts into it but the meaning created by the audience — the decision of whether their interpretation is true. Yet stories have become increasingly more expensive as books become beautiful luxury purchases and movie budgets soar. We need more stories worth less rather than fewer worth more. We need a glut on the market so that we know they’re just stories while still luxuriating in them.
Absolutely! We also live in a time when people primarily experience culture through memes rather than through rich, complex, intelligent narratives.
Interesting point. I wonder if it isn't about access. People who do read want really complex and long stories printed in beautifully constructed books which has made them expensive and less accessible to the average person. Meanwhile we just went through a really well-received golden age of television based on subscription companies willing to go into debt for subscribers that competed with reading time for non-reading-enthusiasts. Now that TV has to be more sustainable the quality is going down and the subscription costs are going up. For someone just looking to pass the time memes and reels are just around. Like who's writing Gen X and Millennial versions of old white dude nazi-hunter books? Used to be there was a free Cussler or Grisham within eyesight to be had anywhere you went. I think what we really need is a National Lampoon in print so they're just lying around and accessible.