Once upon a time all stories were local and spoken stories.

And then one day a great transformation spread out across the kingdom.

The spoken stories were written down. And this changed the stories and it changed the people too.

Stitched into books, the stories travelled far and wide. In distant locations, the contours of the land where they were read did not match those described in the stories. The tales no longer directed people to their surroundings, nor to the plants and animals they lived alongside, nor yet to the ancestors who had come before them.

A great amnesia fell across the earth. The original purpose of stories was forgotten.

Tales became psychological analogies, guides to help us navigate the tumult of our interior lives. Characters became personalities within. Story settings spoke to our feeling landscape. Dramatic tension represented our inner conflicts.

Stripped of its stories the land spoke to fewer and fewer people. And in this way the local cultures slowly died.

Over time the original stories were replaced by an increasingly global and homogenised culture, produced in centres far away.

Preoccupied with inner voices the people did not notice the earth. And what they did not notice they did not care for.

 

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