Scheherazade
In one of my classes friend and fellow grad student just presented her paper on the influence of Scheherazade from the Arabian nights on other writers, particularly in the 19th century. She talked a lot about the use of identity and disguises and deception, all delicious aspects of writing. For those who may be rusty on their recollection of the Arabian Nights, Scheherazade told stories to keep herself alive. Her husband had the terrible habit of marrying virgins and then killing them the next morning, but Scheherazade was such a talented storyteller, that she kept herself alive for years by telling her husband stories until, two kids later, she obtained his promise not to kill her. Whadda gal, huh? And whadda freaky psycho killer hubby.
And so, all of that got me to thinking about how we create “nesting stories� inside the mainframe story, ie., Chris’s fellow bloggers Mrs. Hasselbeck, Raph, and Dwight. Within our own lives, is an endless array of nested stories: personal, professional, fantasy, fiction, nonfiction.
In the psychosocial sense and the literary sense, we all tell stories to keep ourselves alive, either overtly, or covertly, or both. There has to be a real thread of narrative for the sense of continuity in our lives. Something like a blog can concretize that thread. And, a beautiful aspect of it, is that we never really know when we are going to surprise ourselves, or those around us. Ah! Humanity! Full of glorious surprises!
If we made a hard copy map of our Web hyperlink travels, we could visually realize the way our mind travels obliquely and quickly in all directions, but we would also see that all leaps make sense out of the linear stream of thought. And, like a faithful puppy, I return to my fascination and adherence to the belief that all ideas are related, especially as the crow flys--CONNECTIVITY, that's what I'm talkin about.
Posted by wood0072 at December 12, 2005 8:29 PM