Sometimes it’s hard to get inside a story, other times it’s incredibly hard to stay in one. Either way, people have been drawn to these little windows to somebody else’s life. It is very interesting how much we can learn by seeing with another’s eyes, even though, one might add that you are not fully mature until you have been through everything and tasted all the fruits of Mother Earth. Indeed, stories could be seen as some sort of a third degree encounter with a possible YOU that goes through things that YOU could, would or should go through. It walks the plank for you, it loves for you, it dies for you… You are somewhere in a safe, detached position, from where you can observe, learn and feel without being touched. From here, you are obliged to grow to a new level of understanding, some would argue. It’s like all those generals who plan and lead the battles from their safe heaven drinking their coffee and/or tea, but there is one detail that separates you from them: you are a mere viewer; you watch the action as it unfolds, but you cannot interfere. Or can you?
Michael Ende has proven that you can, in fact, enter a story and change it, even save it. The story of Bastian and his adventure has travelled all around the world. Some of us grew up with the movie, without even knowing it is actually inspired by a book – a common mistake in a screen-oriented society. Anyway, we have to understand the importance of this occurrence: it is a movie that is inspired by a book about a book that is not only 3D, but fully interactive and even more! The characters interact and travel in and out the story, the reader becomes a character as soon as he realizes he holds the key to these – let’s call it – parallel universes. And this fictional world framed in another equally fictional universe is eaten by a black hole, that is the Nothing. And here lies the catch: Fantasia and the real world depend on each other to exist. The stories cannot exist without people knowing and spreading them further, and people cannot evolve as complex beings without these little games of imagination.
Indeed, stories are games of imagination. To tell a story you must first see it yourself, become the conductor of an orchestra of words and possibilities. Even though the listener is not supposed to have an active position (externally), he or she has a very important role in the process: the listener must direct his/her own movie, imagining what is being told, creating possible scenarios, maybe even grow affectionate of one or more characters in the narration. You have to get out of yourself to really listen to a story. You can become one of the characters, you can enter the story as yourself (see The Neverending Story, again), you can alter that universe the way you want to, you are the God of your own world. Children often use this process when they play. They have this amazing capacity of becoming a better (fantastic?) version of themselves, they can and will let their imagination flow, there are no limits, there is no adult telling them there is no Santa Claus, they travel with Santa in his slay, even though they seem to be in their room playing. Nobody can say they live in a lie, for them the magic world of their minds is as real as the normal life they lead with their family, friends, etc.
That’s why stories are preferred by children and denied by adults as childish, immature, unreal. But here we can easily see a huge mistake when making these allegations: stories are not only the “Once upon a time…” tales with princes fighting dragons and princesses trapped in ivory towers. We see movies, we read books, we even make pretend on several occasions. And we’re not children. This paradox would hurt the feelings of many, but at the same time, there is no paradox. The apparent contradiction is itself a fiction created by adults who wanted to justify their actions as being mature and reasonable. It’s one more way to neutralize the so-called feminine element that threatened the enlightened man’s way. I am not trying to make a feminist argument, but this essay somewhat leads to a conclusion that also includes such a statement. Nor am I claiming that stories are feminine, nor that they are masculine. They are merely irrational and deeply linked to our subconscious, some would say. I can’t say I don’t agree, but the problem is much more complicated. It would be like trying to reduce the String Theory to a Newtonian point of view. There is no point in denying the bad image “childish” elements have in our society, but there is no point in denying that they cannot be erased.
That is what Michael Ende is trying to tell us in Neverending Story. A world without imagination can very well be eaten by the Nothing, as a spider leaves his prey’s shell, but the prey is long dead… We must not forget to believe and to imagine, it is in our very nature as human beings to let the mind fly and the soul be emerged in Fantasia. The world is real, stories are real if we want them to be.
Until the next time, ki o tsukete kudasai (take care!!)!!!
Signed,
Moi
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