Story-Sense

It's no wonder that the ancients believed all sorts of things had a spirit, from springs and creeks to manners in which folks act-- a lot of things make sense if you phrase them as a self-willed force, a story push, a non-person character.

Water wants to flow down hill.

Plants want to reach for the sun.

The Market (large groups of buyers and sellers making thousands of tiny, individual choices) is good at finding the cheapest way to do something.

Insert conspiracy theory about how there is 'some group' that manipulated this or that event:
What do you mean, nobody bothered to do anything about people from known terrorist areas that were learning to fly but not land?
What do you mean, banks thought it was better to give bad loans than deal with thousands of lawsuits because of demographics?
What do you mean, there's no specific rule about proving citizenship?
What do you mean, the unions and Democrats working together isn't planned?
What do you mean, an oil rig blowing up a week after Obama talks about environmental dangers, giving him a reason to shut down oil production, wasn't planned?
What do you mean, a beauty queen with a gorgeous husband, picture-perfect family, oldest son in the military and youngest child a testament to her pro-life convictions just happened to manage to become a governor?  Look at her, she couldn't be more perfect for appealing to right wingers if she was designed, so she must be designed!
 What do you mean, Europe didn't have some group plotting to destroy them?  They invited in huge numbers of violent, poorly educated, strongly idiological people whose culture is opposed to everything they stand for, and then stood back and let them take over areas.  No way would the same people who mandate pregnancy leave for husbands stand by while women in their own country are murdered for being raped, wearing clothing that hints at their form or refusing to marry their 50 year old five-times married first cousin when they're 14!
What do you mean, the UN isn't a plot to wipe out any local population stupid enough to trust them?  They come in, destroy any economic chance of building farms or industry, outlaw anything that might cut down on death from malaria and malnutrition, take peoples' weapons with a promise to protect them and then lock them outside when murderers come to kill them-- all while having horrifically monstrous nations on their various humanitarian panels.
What do you mean, title 9 isn't a plot to destroy civilization?  Women want husbands who are better than them-- look at all the myths of this or that princess who was the best at X, and then swears she'll marry no man who cannot beat her-- so we encourage women to achieve more (good), and then cut down boys and men so they can't be men, can't do the same as the women, and the only way to be "more" is to be a feckless playboy or thug; neither of those are any good for making a family, even if they work as sperm donors, so you end up with either a lot of angry, childless women and angry, childless men who have given up on even the notion of each other as a mate rather than a sex toy... and they both tend to look at those children who do manage to be born and grow up in spite of these changes, since they don't have the emotional bonds and maturity to be attracted to those of their own age; the most attractive are those from solid homes, since they are more likely to be healthy, happy and successful...and it starts again.



Maybe it's just that I've been focusing on story theory a lot of late, or that I haven't been getting much sleep, or it's just my English teacher's focus on detecting what story is being told crossed with trying to teach myself how to build an entire story.

No matter why it is, it struck me as interesting how well it works on an emotional level if you look at it as some sort of outside force, spirit, story-line....

*UPDATE*
This just showed up in my inbox:
Are we stupid abroad by accident or design?