Chapter Two: STORYTELLING and CATHARSIS

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"Take your broken heart—make it into art." —Carrie Fisher, actress.  In this episode—fifth in this season's exploration of the Language of the Soul book—we explore the mechanics of catharsis. From the moment Aristotle coined the term to assign cultural value to the arts in the face of fascism, the catharsis art provides has transformed us emotionally, while shifting our thought forms and paradigms. The cleansing is threefold: the creative process serves as purgation for the artist, then vicariously for the patron. And as always, through the ripple effect, society evolves in kind. 

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Chapters

• 1:30 Defining Art And Its Categories
• 4:02 Aesthetics, Subjectivity, And The Beholder
• 9:05 Narrative’s Rise, Fall, And Conceptual Turn
• 14:03 Storytelling, Resonance, And Cultural Impact
• 17:35 What Is Catharsis Really
• 22:49 Catharsis Beyond Venting: Healing And Hope
• 28:32 Politics, Art, And The Streep Backlash
• 35:50 Propaganda, Persuasion, And Rhetorical Appeals
• 42:47 How Stories Rewire Emotion And Memory
• 48:55 Thought And Feeling: A Two-Way Circuit
• 54:06 Resonance And Archetypes In Practice
• 59:05 Process: Inspiration Versus Structure
• 1:04:48 Conceptual Thinking And Visual Metaphor
• 1:09:35 Planning, Happy Accidents, And Synchronicity
• 1:16:51 When Life Hands You A Motif

Transcript

Aesthetics, Subjectivity, And The Beholder

Narrative’s Rise, Fall, And Conceptual Turn

Storytelling, Resonance, And Cultural Impact

What Is Catharsis Really

Catharsis Beyond Venting: Healing And Hope

Politics, Art, And The Streep Backlash

Propaganda, Persuasion, And Rhetorical Appeals

How Stories Rewire Emotion And Memory

Thought And Feeling: A Two-Way Circuit

Resonance And Archetypes In Practice

Process: Inspiration Versus Structure

Conceptual Thinking And Visual Metaphor

Planning, Happy Accidents, And Synchronicity

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Chapter 2 The Creative Process as Catharsis How Art Reflects Life. Take your broken heart, make it into art. The late Carrie Fisher Actress. A quick Google search will sometimes yield hard truths one is not ready to face. After only a few letters, the algorithms of most search engines display the most popular searches based on keywords, to sometimes shocking effect. One walks away disillusioned, having lived a perfectly complete life ignorant to just how many people regularly pondered where boogers come from or why farts smell. When one googles the types, genres, categories, or forms of art, the most popular related search terms are often, what are the three types of art? What are the seven types of art? What are the ten types of art? Clearly, consensus on the matter is missing in action. For our purposes, let's cast the widest net possible and look at search results for the ten types of art. At the moment this chapter was written, the top result linked to a blog post titled The Ten Essential Types of Art to Know. The article breaks down the broad and elusive as yet impossible to define concept of art into ten essential categories painting, graphic design, illustration, sculpture, literature, architecture, film, music, theater, and fashion. To be clear, the term art should be distinguished from creative acts or acts of creativity, which would logically encompass a much broader spectrum of innovations not popularly recognized as art. As posited in previous chapters, it could be argued that all man's efforts, his fairy behaviors, right down to cellular maintenance and the involuntary act of breathing, are creative acts. The article assumes the mainstream definition of art, which is equally worth looking at. I encourage you to investigate multiple definitions of art from various reliable sources like Merriam-Webster, Cambridge, and even encyclopedias that delve further into nuance. For the moment, let's look at Oxford Dictionary's definition of art, the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. Quote, the art of the Renaissance. Definition two the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance. Quote, the visual arts. The first definition resonates with me in its distinction of art objects as distinct from utilitarian inventions or crafts, being appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power. This speaks to the arguably distinctly human phenomenon of aesthetics. An entire branch of philosophy has been devoted to this nearly inexplicable realm of tastes, preferences, modes of transportation, and transformation, that only sometimes can be traced back to survival instincts by evolutionary theorists. Being the subversive individual that I am, I can't help but resist the idea that art forms are limited to those that academics have assigned pure beauty or emotional power. In the same way I find the traditionally mundane things in life the most underappreciated. I often find utilitarian creations devalued to craft status among the most aesthetically pleasing and powerful. For that matter, in my twenties, a dear friend of mine had yet to master a craft or even settle on a mode of expression. Still I argued that everything she does is art, the way she moves, breathes, the tone in her voice, her laugh. I'm not the first to say it. Art is in the eye of the beholder. We'll delve deeper into the realm of aesthetics in chapter five, finding your voice. For the moment, suffice it to say, a sense of beauty or emotional resonance, any notion of what qualifies as having artistic value, is extremely subjective. Each person's innate sense of aesthetics is unique, as is their particular life experience and emotional imprint. The worldview projected on the art object by the patron, that invisible inner realm is as unique as a thumbprint. The new criticism, both the movement and the book by John Crow Ransom, posits that the projections of the patron, in all art forms, but especially literature, take precedence over an artist's intentions and critical evaluation or postulation. One saving grace about the article cited above is its inclusion of literature among the arts. In academia, the branches of the humanities are too broad to address here, encompassing arguably all that makes us human and informs culture. In education, the Bachelor of Fine Arts BFA degree is a standard undergraduate degree for students pursuing a professional education in the visual, fine, or performing arts. Here, the Oxford Dictionary definition of fine art overlaps with that of art in general, rendering them nearly synonymous. Fine art. Creative art, especially visual art, whose products are to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content. Quote, the convergence of popular culture and fine art. An activity requiring great skill or accomplishment. Quote, he'll have to learn the fine art of persuasion. The fact that literature has a place among the fine arts makes for a seamless inclusion of narrative in the conversation about catharsis. It could be argued that even fine art has been narratively based throughout the bulk of art history. Most art historians place art movements, like Cubism or Impressionism, in three major periods ancient art, medieval and renaissance art, and modernism or contemporary art. A large proportion of prehistoric and ancient regional folk art depicted narrative. From the earliest cave paintings depicting buffalo hunts through the myths and legends immortalized in graphic form during medieval times and the Renaissance, the large part of Western European art was commissioned by the Catholic Church, often depicting sacred or religious content, however fraught with fire and brimstone that is narrative in nature. Modernism, contemporary art, has left narrative in the dust in lieu of conceptual territory. Process art, experimental art, and the various branches of performance art, including the spoken word, have replaced linear narrative with nonlinear storytelling formats. In this way, arthouse films and experimental films simply create an experience for the viewer, much like concept art in a gallery. In fine art and illustration, narrative scenarios are making a comeback, but for the large part of the century were frowned upon or dismissed as irrelevant. When I attended Art Center from 1989 to 1991, illustrators like Matt Mehuran, Greg Spalenka, and Marshall Arisman had recently graduated Art Center and made a splash on the editorial scene in New York. They found themselves at the forefront of what has become known as conceptual editorial illustration. Major publications like Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, and Playboy were paying top dollar for print illustrations that accomplished the usual list of objectives, to encapsulate the concept of articles in a single image, while intriguing readers to read further. However, the specialty of this new generation of illustrators was their instinct to use a conceptual approach. Rather than literally reiterating the content of an article, they created an interactive experience for the viewer by promising a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. Arguably, this is the definition of another term we will be exploring: resonance. To further explain what is meant by a conceptual approach to image making, conceptual editorial illustration is defined by its resistance to narrative scenarios, featuring characters interacting in convincing environments. While still figurative and representational, as opposed to abstract, linear narratives are avoided at all costs, even demonized. Instead, symbolism is used to create visual metaphor. At Art Center, in addition to technique, I was largely being paid to think conceptually. My classmates and I had the mantra hammered into our heads. Never depict the world leaders battling it out at the dining table. If anything, show the mice battling it out on the floor beneath it. Better yet, show the shadows of the mice. Show the moment before or after. One of the standard assignments meant to crystallize our conceptual thinking was an assignment in which students were meant to depict two iconic characters from literature, history, or media, without showing them. Samson and Delilah, Tarzan and Jane, or Ronald and Nancy Reagan. If memory serves, one of many solutions I explored depicted a pith helmet with a pink bow and a loincloth slung over a branch for Tarzan and Jane. For Samson and Delilah, it was simply an elegant, feminine-looking Philistine razor and a lock of thick auburn hair. Suffice it to say that whether a storytelling approach is narrative or conceptual in nature, this shared language of story, word, and image pervades all forms of art, transcending genre. Even advertisers, propagandists, and political campaigners have a vested interest in storytelling as a way to reach audiences and sway platforms. Simply put, storytelling seems to be the word of the day. Whether the catharsis a story offers can be identified as a moral or ethical concept, or simply as an inexplicable gut level visceral experience, individuals are transformed by it, and no way around it. Society at large is the product of its narratives. Individually, we are all products of the stories we've been exposed to. And we individuals comprise the collective. What's in a name? Many schools of thought, including the reflections offered in this book, identify catharsis as an outcome of storytelling and art, if not a primary goal. The premise of this chapter, in fact, it's as good a time as any, is that story, whether conceptual or narrative, transforms the individual through catharsis and evolves society by extension. My own views on the function of art and culture is the synthesis of existing ideologies that resonate with my personal experience and that of having mentored artists for decades. In the last chapter, we explored in general terms the idea that storytelling transforms, analyzing the neurological and chemical basis for the often celebrated transformation in question, what happens in our brains chemically when we are told a story or partake in art? We discussed various modalities and the particular emotions or chemical balances they induce. We discussed the effect of them on our limbic systems and physiology. But mechanically, how does the moment-to-moment cocktail of neurotransmitters secreted, the peptides and proteins in enzymes and hormones, amount to new paradigms and thought forms, or a new worldview and emotional imprint altogether? The word we've slapped on this outcome, catharsis, dates back to Greek classicism, when Aristotle heeded a sense of urgency to combat fascism by placing cultural value on the arts and storytelling. The word has survived centuries, even gained popularity in pop culture in recent years. But what is it really? Like so many words, love comes to mind, the word catharsis may have lost its potency due to overuse. We speak of it often, but scarcely understand what it means. To begin defining catharsis, it may be helpful to recall the example of Bonnie Raite's song about heartbreak. The writing of it healed her, and the poor girl listening to the car radio two thousand miles away who'd experienced similar heartbreak. The purging was direct and immediate for Bonnie, but it was vicarious for the patron, relying solely on identification with our shared humanity. Another way to begin to define the word catharsis is to look at how it's used in vernacular contexts or everyday language. Personally, I am fascinated by the chasm between denotation and connotation, and the power of language to betray startling truths about the human condition and our metaphysical place in the universe. The most mundane colloquial expressions often reveal the most profound insights. Though many of the below reflections were made in the media for public consumption, they are far from academic. Here is what some creatives have said about the role of catharsis in their craft. Look, pain is there in the world, and there's catharsis through that. I feel like there's a rapture if we can get through it, if we can confront things. Derek C and Fratz, director of Blue Valentine. I see artists as the first responders, and when the proverbial crap hits the fan, we are there to be of service, to tell the story, to bring a bomb, to soothe, to provide catharsis. You know, not to make our work any more important or less important, but just that there is a great importance to it. Elizabeth Marvel, actress. The best catharsis is to write jokes and tell four thousand people about it. Veer Das, stand-up comedian. Theatricality, that's where you get catharsis. The Greeks went to see drama because it felt like this wasn't happening to them. Musician, composer, arca. An actor's only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us, and let you feel what that feels like. Meryl Streep, Oscar winning actress. It's such a privilege just to be an actor, and we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be very proud. Tommy Lee Jones, actor. Rioting is not revolutionary, but reactionary because it invites defeat. It involves an emotional catharsis, but it must be followed by a sense of futility. Martin Luther King Jr. Activist Distinguishing Between Demonstrating and Rioting. I have a very healthy relationship to my work, and I find that if a scene is working, no matter how intense it is, you have the catharsis on screen and you can let it go. I think it's if at the end of the day you feel like you haven't cracked it, that's when you go home and it's more difficult to switch off. Kate Blanchett Actress. It's fair to say that the emotional journey of all these artists, storytellers, and activists has been fueled by the catharsis of creative expression, and that each has offered catharsis to others through their work. Each has a relationship with creativity, and therefore a relationship with catharsis. Carrie Fisher's poignant directive in the opening, quote, defines her life and legacy while speaking to the often tragic outcome of artists throughout time who have been martyred for the cause of cultural evolution. But what about pure inspiration? The kind that sends rockets into space and bonds us and awakens us to our highest human potential, the kind that ushers us toward a vision of the best version of humanity. Though some of the quotes hinted that emotional purging is a means of simply getting out one's aggressions, equivalent to venting in a conversation, the potential outcome is far more profound. Some academic definitions I will share later in this chapter acknowledge that psychological complexes can be resolved through catharsis. This speaks to the reconciliation of cognitive dissonance or opposing beliefs that yields new thought forms and paradigms. On an emotional level, art and story can help us get unstuck from chronic anxiety, even PTSD, or depression. When we experience loss, art can speak to us viscerally and renew faith or hope, rescuing us from stalled mourning or maturation. We've all heard critics employ the somewhat hackneyed phrase, life-affirming. Simply feeling less alone and more human can be key in maintaining self-love in lieu of being debilitated by our differences. When marginalized or disenfranchised individuals experience the empowerment of solidarity, the whole tribe benefits. All our personal liberties are protected. The above quote attributed to Meryl Streep came from her controversial 2017 Academy Award acceptance speech. It was mere months into Trump's presidency and administration. Many were still shell-shocked by the surreal turn of events his election represented, dear in the headlights of a strange new world. Reaction to her words fell along ideological lines, praised by progressives and condemned by conservatives. Four years later, during the writing of this chapter, I looked back on the surprisingly short speech that elicited such backlash from conservative Republicans. My take now is the same as it was then. The actress indicted Trump without ever mentioning his name. But the thrust of her impassioned plea, the stakes she so clearly illuminated in her speech, had nothing to do with him. It had to do with freedom and personal liberty, equality and justice, all of which are threatened by autocracy, demagoguery, and fascism. Her plea was no different than the one made by Aristotle centuries earlier, when the pendulum of our first democracy had swung toward the erosion of these values. She was provoking free thinkers to fight for freedom in the face of oppression. More to the point, much of the backlash had to do with the long-standing distaste many have when, elite in the eyes of some, Hollywood actors turn the red carpet into their personal soapbox. Do your job and act, the sentiment goes, and do not subject audiences to your politics. I get it to a degree. I've been turned off from time to time by celebrities waxing political in the wrong arena, gifted a captive audience. Especially if the views they espouse don't align with mine. I've found myself wanting Oscar night to be an evening of fluff, levity, and nothing more. However, nothing Merrill shed a light on in her speech was political by definition. Her words had to do with preserving humanism. For that matter, the outcry against populism had solely to do with what is morally and ethically right. The venomous reaction of some to Merrill's speech revealed a correlation between political platform and overarching ideology. Any adverse reaction to the content of her speech betrayed, by definition, a mentality at odds with human rights. Most distasteful of all during this divisive time, in my economy, has been the blind allegiance to party at the expense of the internal moral compass known as ethics. Party over principle is the mantra of the day. When folks say actors should do their jobs and keep personal politics to themselves, they reduce the artist to a dog and pony show, a sampler platter from which the public can cherry pick what they want. I've long found it distasteful when folks gladly partake in art but object to the intent and motivation behind the work. They wish to benefit from it selectively while silencing. The thoughts and opinions of those who make it. It's no different than the mainstream benefiting selectively from the contributions of the LGBTQ community, wearing the clothes its members design, hanging the paintings they paint, or singing along with their tunes, but preferring they remain invisible. We'll consume even exploit your product, the contingent says by their actions. As long as you remain silent and invisible. Just don't let us know you exist. We do not want to know about your marginalization. The same way the LGBTQ community has opened eyes to this hypocrisy by instituting a day without gays. Hashtags like a day without storytellers and a day without artists began to appear on social media after the Oscar controversy. When we separate the artist from the work, we not only do her a disservice, but we miss the mark entirely. What these conservative cherry pickers failed to understand is that Meryl Streep has devoted her life to changing hearts and minds through her craft, the nudging all of us in our emotional and spiritual growth, which is more than most of us can claim. She chooses her roles based on the intent of the writing, the message it sends. Every line of dialogue and her interpretation is infused with her life experience, also known as worldview, and no one else's. So to speak her mind without the mouthpiece of a character should not be a huge leap. It's just that some fail to understand art itself, or what drives artists, storytellers, and creatives to express in the first place. It's entirely possible those who fail to comprehend what drives a true artist, or the role of storytelling and culture beyond blowing shit up and parading tits and ass are not the same people who partake in films with something to say. Those who protested Merrill's speech are not likely to be found at their local theater, indulging experimental independent films, foreign films, or arthouse films. It's been said that every novel is a snapshot of its author's psyche in the moment of its writing. How could it be otherwise? One is hard pressed to separate any creator from his or her creation, no matter how masterful that artist is at tapping into the universal. It's also been said that the more personal an artist can make the work, the more universally it will ring on the receiving end. It should be noted that there's a fine line between art and propaganda. That line, however, is largely in the eyes of the beholder. In literary circles, agenda is death to artistic integrity and literary value. When a story is heavy-handed, preachy, moralistic, or didactic, it quickly becomes propaganda. Short of this extreme, there's no denying the role of storytelling in culture. Whether we choose to become lucid about it or remain affected by default on autopilot. Many of us are simply fish breathing in visible water, or crabs in boiling water as the case may be. We are molded even if unaware of how story shapes our worldview all day every day, how we are products of the stories we are exposed to. To those who take part in story but wish to silence storytellers, I would advise that remaining ignorant to the vast roles they play in the world is nothing short of exploitation. On this front, I subscribe to Socrates' suggestion that an unexamined life is not worth living. The high school valedictorian in me has held out long enough. It's time to consult the usual suspects, the Cambridge, Merriam Webster, and Oxford Dictionaries. Below is an amalgam from all three. Catharsis is defined as one purification or purgation of the emotions, such as pity or fear, primarily through art. 2. A purification or purgation that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension. 3 elimination of a complex by bringing it to consciousness and affording it expression. 4. Purgation. Let's go to the source. Aristotle's original term catharsis, as characterized the classic Greek tragedies, is based on the following etymology Greek rootin' to purify, purge, from catharos, pure, clear of dirt, clean, spotless, open, free, clear of shame or guilt, purified. The medical term catharsis is defined as the emptying, cleansing, purging, or evacuation of the bowels, intestines. A cathartic or purgitive is an agent that causes catharsis, relieves constipation. In the way of a true poet, Aristotle originally used the term figuratively. The literal connotation evolved later. The first recorded appearance of catharsis as a medical term occurred in 1770, used to denote a bodily purging, especially of the bowels. Its first recorded appearance in psychology occurred in 1872 to denote a purging through vicarious experience. And as a psychotherapy term, it was first recorded in 1909 in Brill's translation of Freud's Selected Papers on Hysteria. Aristotle's definition of catharsis centers on two specific emotions to be purged, fear and pity. Personally, the idea of purging fear resonated with me as an outcome of catharsis. As a writer, I've come to understand the role of hope and fear in narrative. It's been said that screenwriting in particular hinges on an audience's hopes and fears. Patrons hope the protagonist will achieve her goal, and they fear she will not, and that all will prove futile. As always, art reflects life. I've also come to understand that much of human behavior, including society's ills on a larger scale, are driven by fear, not just fear of chaos or the existential terror that's in awareness of our mortality, but by fear of scarcity, loss of power, etc., and abandonment. In my own life, I identify as someone who does not obey fear. In fact, the word traditionally means very little to me in the context of decision making and behavior. But why would I be the sole exemption, no matter how free of neuroses I fancy myself? The absence of fear in my vocabulary has turned out to mean one thing. My own anxieties, and I do have them, are based in fears with which I am completely out of touch. The second primary emotion Aristotle says was purged via catharsis is pity. This one did not land with me. I had a hunch there was some cultural context missing, and the word had evolved over time to lose its currency. For example, when the Bible or any number of traditions warns us against gluttony, the word is lost on us in the 21st century. This is for one simple reason. Most of us in the Western world are out of touch with scarcity. Our needs are met, and we're socialized with entitlement. Those who lived through plagues, the Great Depression, or the Dust Bowl may have more gratitude and therefore value prudence, modesty, and reserve, which in turn demonizes behaviors that exhibit overindulgence, opulence, or gluttony. You get the idea. I sensed the same phenomenon had befallen the word pity. When I read that Aristotle cited it among the two primary motions to be purged through catharsis, I sensed something was lost in translation. Oh, I'd seen and read Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, and plenty of other Shakespeare works that fell under the classic tragedy template, and I'd certainly pitied the characters who suffered, especially when it was due to their own folly, hubris, or arrogance, their fatal flaw. But why would pity be an emotion that merits purging, I wondered. After research and deliberation, what I came to was this. It's likely that in the cultural context of Aristotle's definition, pity carried a connotation of judgment, whereas in modern Western culture the connotation leans heavily toward compassion and empathy. In Jodeo-Christian culture, judgment is universally a liability that might warrant purging, whereas compassion and empathy are desirable to us. It is also fair to say that although pity for tragic characters or pathos is obligatory in a classical Greek tragedy, it's simply the device used to best impart a cautionary tale. That is, when neither a character's want nor higher need is met, the definition of a tragedy, we are left with a sense of futility and a strong desire in our own lives to avoid the pitfalls represented by the character's fatal flaw. The aforementioned Titus is perhaps one of Shakespeare's darkest works. It represents the quintessence of the classical Greek tragedy. Like in Hamlet, pretty much everyone dies. It clearly illustrates the dead end road that is family vendetta or revenge, in contrast to grace or turning the other cheek. Self-pity is a negative in many modern societies, as is wallowing in self-pity. It's akin to guilt, shame, or self-loathing. It was likely the same back then. In this way, purging one's self-pity through catharsis is akin to realizing one's life is better than that of the tragic character or characters. Pity in Greek translates to alios or mercy, yet again, a loaded word with an entirely different cultural connotation. It would seem that despite the ineptness of most translations, a more accurate way of interpreting Aristotle's intention might be to parse the words as follows. Characters pathos elicit pity. The resultant mercy, what we call compassion, purges judgment. The unfortunate wording of the dictionary definitions of Catharsis is misleading, only in that it suggests pity is the emotion to be purged. In fact, pity or pathos is a tool identified by Aristotle, along with ethos and logos to be discussed later, to accomplish the purgation Catharsis has to offer. But let's not split hairs. Here are the standing definitions of pity or alios noun alios mercy a feeling of sympathy at the misfortune or suffering of someone or something. Verb to have pity on, take pity on, show mercy to two to feel pity for someone or something. Three a feeling of sympathy. The old school gangsters of persuasion pathos a quality that evokes pity or sadness. The actor injects his customary humor and pathos into the role. In various works, Aristotle spoke of the modes of persuasion, otherwise known as rhetorical appeals, used to facilitate the catharsis story can offer. These modes or appeals are known by the names of ethos, pathos, and logos. They are means of persuading others to believe a particular point of view. In modern times, they are often used in speechwriting and advertising to sway audiences. Pathos, appeal to emotion, is a way of convincing an audience of an argument by creating an emotional response to an impassioned plea or a convincing story. Ethos, sometimes called an appeal to ethics, is used as a means of convincing an audience via the authority or credibility of the persuader, be it a notable or experienced figure in the field or even a popular celebrity. Logos, appeal to logic, is a way of persuading an audience with reason using facts and figures. Persuasion, modern style. The peppered moth has become the prime example of the role of genetic variants in adaptability and of the phenomenon of survival of the fittest in general. When Europe became industrialized and factories began spouting soot, the trunks of trees in the forests between London and Manchester quickly darkened with soot. It took only a few generations for the darker soot-colored moths to grow from a small percentage of the moth population to 98% of it. The lighter moths and speckled ones were picked off by birds, unable to camouflage themselves. Short of clear-cut examples like this, it would seem evolution moves at a snail's pace, especially human evolution. All one needs to do is read the rats attributed to Socrates about kids today, to see that the human condition has remained relatively constant throughout modern history. Our emotional journeys and lessons, our trials, tribulations, and struggles, our joys and triumphs, seem to be threaded together over time. There is a reason Shakespeare still resonates today, if one can comprehend or tolerate, as the case may be, the early modern English in which it was written. In modern times, the modes of persuasion Aristotle popularized have arguably grown more sophisticated as media diversify. No longer does storytelling have a monopoly on catharsis. The means by which we persuade others has become the currency of advertisers, political campaigners, and propagandists the world over. If story seeks to enlighten, it could be said that advertisers employ the same means to make a buck, and political strategists wield them to amass and maintain power. As touched on in the previous chapters, storytelling has been usurped for the almighty dollar, transformation be damned. In this seemingly more manipulative context, variations on Aristotle's rhetorical appeals can be found in the propaganda techniques we all learned in elementary school. Number one, testimonial. This form of propaganda uses well-known or credible figures to influence the target audience. A celebrity or public figure, if your favorite screen actor uses teeth-be white toothpaste, it must be good. Number two, stereotyping. This propaganda method highlights stereotypes and then either reinforces or shatters them with the message in the advertisement. Number three, fear appeals. The agenda behind these types of propaganda ads and messages is to scare people into taking a desired action. Advertisers are the first to remind us there are delinquents just waiting to hotwire our cars, so we'd better buy that club. Or that we absolutely must purchase their home security system due to the bevy of thugs lying in wait to invade our homes the moment our head hits the pillow. 4. Bandwagon. The bandwagon phenomenon creates a sense of isolation and triggers FOMO, fear of missing out, and specific people who long to be part of some desirable group. 5. Plain folks. Seeing seemingly regular people endorse a product or service primes prospects to try it out because they can see it fitting into their everyday lives too. 6. Transfer. The idea behind this tactic is to irrationally tie the audience's positive associations to a completely unrelated concept. Transfer propaganda relies on symbolism to push its target audience to make illogical connections. 7. Name calling. Name calling propaganda is based on putting the other party down. Mud slinging and dragging opposing candidates through the mud has been taken to a new low in recent elections. This includes but is not limited to literal schoolyard name calling. Card stacking. Card stacking represents selective information to paint an incomplete and incorrect narrative to influence people. Companies that partake in greenwashing use this tactic. 9. Glittering Generalities. Glittering generalities employ loaded words and strong slogans to leave an impact on the audience receiving the message. This technique plays a big role in marketing and brand positioning. Ad nauseum propaganda. This type of propaganda relies on the power of repetition. Ad nauseum marketing campaigns target audiences at a very high frequency to remain top of mind. Children have been known to sing television jingles before learning to speak. If a brand is on the tip of a customer's tongue due to sheer repetition, chances are infinitely greater he will reach for it on the shelf when shopping for sheer familiarity. Now that we've got a sense of what catharsis means to artist and patron, and we've broken down the various methods by which story seeks to set the stage for transformation, we're ready to take the plunge and look at the mechanics by which our thoughts and feelings are transformed. Let's examine how the angels and devil's cocktail described in the former chapter result in lasting paradigm shifts and changes of heart. Catharsis can take many forms. In addition to the purging of visceral emotions, thought forms and paradigms can be transformed, even cleansed. The cleansing of thought forms, the synthesizing of opposing ones, and the resolution of cognitive dissonance most closely mirrors the conflict resolution of story. In storytelling, the two outcomes, emotional catharsis or mental transformation, are not mutually exclusive. Depending on medium, a given story may offer some combination of both. It's fair to say that cinema is a visceral emotional medium first and foremost. Conversely, literature traditionally dives into more intellectual territory more gracefully than film, and theater is known to be downright cerebral. It's emotion that makes the cut. Our worldview, what some call our value system, is a mapping of highly emotional experiences. But what is an emotion exactly? Emotions are biologically based psychological states brought on by neurophysical changes, alternately associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and degrees of perceived pleasure or displeasure. The scientific community has yet to reach a consensus on a precise definition. But no doubt about it, we know emotions when we have them. Yet again, everyday expressions reveal how synonymous feelings and emotions seem to be with human experience. We can be bent out of shape, beside ourselves, on cloud nine, shaken up, floored or driven up the wall. We can be on pins and needles, head over heels, fed up, mellow or even blue. In the 1970s, Aerosmith sang the praises of sweet emotion, and the temptations seconded that emotion. In 1975, Morris Albert tried to forget his feelings of love, but ended up immortalizing them in an anthem that's become a rather sacrine cultural punchline for folks of a certain age. The thoughts we attach to physiological states are often those we've been conditioned to associate with a given pang, flutter, twinge, or stomach-dwelling butterfly. Those fight or flight responses germane to survival. But categorically, the emotion, that aforementioned cocktail of chemicals, has been whipped up by the adrenal glands and neurons long before we name it. Imagine that a dog experiences a heightened physiological state in response to a stimulus. He is excited. Involuntarily his tail begins to wag. It is the human owner that anthropomorphizes the tail wagging behavior by naming it, characterizing the dog as happy, so so excited to eat or eager to go for a walkie walk. In the same way, we humans label our own physiological states happy, sad, melancholy, regretful, irritable. You get the idea. What we know is that all day, every day, before even Exiting the front door. The outside world presents us with stimuli. Together, a set of stimuli could be called an event or experience. The brain is designed to quickly characterize sensory impressions received by the sense organs, then interpreted by the brain, as either threats or opportunities. The rustling of a bush may trigger the cortisol and adrenaline associated with the fight or flight response before we can discern whether it's caused by a leopard or a squirrel. The chemicals secreted are those needed for survival in that moment. Conversely, if the sight of a lovely woman is categorized by the brain as an opportunity, the euphoric brain chemicals secreted will motivate behaviors most likely to seal the deal and result in procreation. This phenomenon, arguably, explains the larger percentage of human behavior. What does this have to do with transformation? Consider that the initial chemical response to an event or experience is unexamined and immediate. Our cognition engages later, tempering knee jerk reactions to what Eckhart Toll might call the pain body, with critical analysis of a situation. We've all experienced a moment in which we wonder if we've acted rashly based on past experience, or should listen to our gut, whether we should heed that initial instinctive response we've come to call intuition. The imprint of this pain body may trigger a fight or flight response to a perceived threat based on past experience, even if it's not a viable one. This equals the secretion of cortisol and adrenaline to fuel a defensive action. The tempering of base drives with intellectual mediation, however, is equally crucial to our survival. Therein lies the uniqueness of the human condition, thanks to these sophisticated brains we've grown. What's crucial to transformation is this whether we temper them intellectually or not, physiological responses transmute into heightened emotional states. The threats or opportunities we experience all day every day are assessed. Those determined to be key to our survival become mapped on the brain as neural circuits, whereas those deemed inconsequential are relegated to the subconscious and deactivated. That way, the next time we come upon a rustling bush, we will have a backlog of experience to refer to. The tool of reasoning only comes into play once immediate threats have been eliminated. In this way, reasoning is a luxury akin to Maslow's higher needs, evolving only once base needs are met. The determining factor in which experiences and events are mapped on our worldview or value system is this: the degree of emotion attached to them. This is precisely why story seeks to reach the patron emotionally. A heightened state of emotion increases the chances a story will be folded into the batter of the patron's worldview and emotional imprint. Over the course of human history, these mechanics of story and their outcomes have gone largely unexamined. But the fact remains, this is how things have evolved. Evolutionary theorists would posit there are few mistakes. Storytelling, along with all our other institutions, serves our collective adaptation and survival. The above described mechanics, especially the outcome of highly emotional experiences being mapped on our view of the world, means one thing. We have our hands in the clay. We are products of the stories we've been exposed to, individually and culturally. Our personal identity is the narrative we tell ourselves about the past, and our cultural identity is our collective history. In French, the word histoire is the same whether referring to a children's story, Histoire d'Enfant, or world history, Histoire du Monde. In my book, this says it all. The implication that we have our hands in the clay is vast. Once we become aware we are molded by narrative, that narrative is what creates heightened emotion, we can begin to actively co-create, to choose the kind of stories in which we partake, and those we wish to tell. We can elect to feed our own addiction to cortisol and adrenaline, referred to earlier as the devil's cocktail, or to more euphoric chemicals that benefit the bonding and affinity of the tribe, yielding altruism. To recap, our brains interpret incoming sensory stimuli, which together form events or experiences. These events are quickly assessed as threats, opportunities, or neither. Those deemed immediate threats to survival or opportunities to propagate elicit chemical secretions that affect our physiology most suitably. We call these physiological changes emotions. A heightened physiological state, emotion, is precisely the criteria our brains use to parse what's important to encode on our value system and what's not. What to map on our worldview that's vital, important, or meaningful. In a way, our brains are creating databanks of past emotional experiences we will quickly reference the next time we see a rustling bush or an attractive potential mate in our examples. These mechanics are precisely why learning works best with an emotional component, hence the term emotional learner. They also account for why we learn more through narrative, metaphor, than the didactic. When we partake in story, we experience it as real, and the brain behaves as described above, creating heightened emotions originally intended for our survival in real-life scenarios. Regardless, the heightened emotional state story elicits tag the experience for encoding. In this way, the stories we've indulged in life collectively mold our worldview as much or more than our real-life emotional experiences. In a nutshell, these are the mechanics of storytelling. In his video series, The Anatomy of Chaos, writer Adam Skelter says that emotions are where our ideas engage our physiology, where our minds meet our brains. This assertion may seem contradictory. We've said that a physiological response to stimuli is crafted by the brain long before reason, logic, or intellect conceptualizes the encounter. And yet, Adam seems to suggest that ideas engage our physiology. The truth is, the relationship between thoughts and feelings is reciprocal. We've all seen actors who can put the cart before the horse. By ruminating on a thought, they can produce tears. We've all seen children who work themselves up by voicing thoughts that snowball. The law of attraction assures that a negative thought will invite like thoughts and eventually lead to depression. Perhaps the best illustration of the role of conceptual attribution to otherwise neutral physiological states is cultural relativity. Many cultures support emotional displays much more demonstrative than those permitted by cultures with Anglo roots. In a way, the degree of emotion appropriate in any given situation is learned. It should be clear that the relationship between thoughts and feelings is indeed reciprocal, in art and in life. I resound, therefore I am. The fact that we learn more through metaphor than memorization applies to feelings too. In addition to expanding our conceptual knowledge, we learn emotional lessons, life lessons, and spiritual lessons. In any kind of learning, memorization has proven unsustainable. True learning happens when interim associations are in place. And when those intermediary symbols have emotional resonance, the message is received and mapped. Storytelling relies on archetypal symbols that have persisted throughout human history, taking different forms over time and manifesting as tropes or even stereotypes and cliches. We will distinguish the three in a bit, for the moment, suffice it to say that this thread of arguably innate responses is what lends heightened emotion in large part to our storytelling forms and tropes. We call this potential power resonance. In the same way we might have a knee-jerk reaction to a rustling bush thanks to our database of former experiences. Mankind arguably has a reservoir to draw from that lends resonance to the words and images that are the tools of the storytelling trade and the language of the soul. Resonance, a feeling, thought, memory, etc., that a piece of writing or music makes you have, or the quality in a piece of writing, etc., that makes this happen. Works of art, novels, films, or plays are often said to have emotional resonance. We often hear the term cultural resonance applied to pop culture icons or institutions. Resonance can be based on one's own previous emotional experiences, or on a long cultural history of tropes ingrained through social conditioning. But back to the artist. In the true way of metaphor, art reflecting life, I am a big fan of structure in my craft and in life. Hopefully in both, I have achieved balance between planning and flying by the seat of my pants. There's always work to be done, of course. In animation, traditional character animation is approached in one of two ways straight ahead or pose to pose. Straight ahead animation is what it sounds like. One simply quote acts on paper, drawing one pose after the next to complete an action at whatever the frame rate. In film it is traditionally 24 frames per second. By contrast, pose-to-pose animation is the roughing out of key poses in advance before executing the in-between drawings that constitute all 24 frames per second. Using this approach, an animator can strengthen those key poses that represent fundamentals like anticipation and action, which correlate with potential and kinetic energy, squash and stretch. That way, these most iconic drawings, the ones that stick in the mind's eye via persistence of vision to forge the impression of an action, can be maximized. Needless to say, there are benefits to each approach, and the one an animator settles on for a given sequence boils down to personal preference. In my teaching, one thing has become clear. Those artists who thrill to the initial lightning strike of inspiration often wish to retain its power throughout the execution of a project. To these artists, more methodical technical stages of the creative process feel less fulfilling, less cathartic. Another fact is also clear. Those who, quote, hit a wall in their creative process often do so because of this fear that inspiration has not or will not transcend execution. More to the point, artists often come up against blank canvas syndrome, or conversely, writers against blank page syndrome when they've lost sight of where they are headed. In the same way I'm a proponent of training and technique to guard against having to confront the limitations of one's abilities in the execution of a vision, I highly value planning. If one has structured a story, for example, one has a destination on which to keep an eye. The landmark motivates all. Even so, many writers simply write without first structuring plot, identifying inciting incidents, turning points, want and need, or even the ending that will transpire, yielding thematic content. They, quote, let it unfold, and their subconscious, along with the innate magic of storytelling that is wired in us, does the rest. Unless, that is, they hit the aforementioned proverbial wall. It's a lot easier to get back on track with a landmark. Every artist and writer is different, as is their unique relationship with the creative process. In my own work, the way a conflict resolves and the message sent by its resolution are the sole motivation for writing in the first place. The theme to be imparted, or the message in some cases, is synonymous with and inextricable from the inspiration. What a written work ends up saying to the world is not a byproduct of the unfoldment of the superficial plot. In that way, it would feel to me like putting the cart before the horse to craft a story without knowing what I'm passionate about imparting. But again, everyone's different. And the irony is, even writers without a conscious agenda will end up imparting thematic content, if only by default. The very wiring for story we humans innately possess ensures as much, as does the nature of readers to project. Why not be in control of the cart and the horse, I think? If nothing else, there will be fewer rewrites, fewer bumps in the road to circumvent, to stick to our analogy. When one quote finds one story in the writing of it, the small gems, motifs, symbology, etc., that organically magically weave themselves into the manuscript can only be recognized later. These gems inevitably require strengthening, finessing, massaging, and restructuring once identified. For example, a writer may discover a recurrent visual motif fabricated subconsciously during the writing process. Only once he realizes its power might he therefore choose to foreshadow it by weaving it in earlier to the manuscript. The old saying holds true. Why would one build the Taj Mahal on a styrofoam foundation? This logic alone motivates me to structure my novels well. Oh, a short story that's less linear, more intuitive, or conceptual might benefit from a straightforward approach with little planning or forethought. In that way, the writing session and result is often more direct and visceral, making the purging that much more cathartic. Not only are all artists and their respective approaches unique, but an individual artist might find himself approaching various projects by different means. There is room for all of it. These days, even with regard to novels that beg for structure, my process seems to go like this. I have the lightning strike of inspiration, that incongruous image I've glimpsed during my day that juxtaposes the mundane with the profound, or the poetic image of reflection scattering when a pigeon splashes through a puddle. Could be anything. But because I am primed all day every day for having identified as an artist looking to tell stories, I am an antenna. I follow that boost of inspiration and quickly vomit a first pass, whether into a voice recorder or a laptop. It's here I let intuition roam and the unexamined mystery of the creative process play its part, unbridled. It's no holds barred. And yes, it's thrilling. Next I structure the thing. I analyze what I've laid down in my first gut level visceral expression of the inspiration, seeing what it says to me, what I think it might say to others. If not initially driven by a message, but more so an experience or an image or scenario that seems inexplicably loaded, I try to get to the bottom of its symbolism. What is the metaphor that jumped out to my subconscious? The outline I create becomes about strengthening this universal content. What is being said about the human condition and the nature of life in the physical realm? Effectively imparting that, whatever it is, as we've discussed before and will again, depends on the character arc, the story arc, and all the components on it. I get out the three by five cards and start creating, arranging, and rearranging story beats, like inciting incident, rising action, climax, faux denuma, and denuma, then plugging in all the foreshadowing and turning points that support them. I take the time to clearly identify the conflict, which requires clarifying the goal, divided into want and higher need. Sometimes this is not readily apparent, or there may be many ways to put it. I choose one, knowing things will evolve but establishing my lighthouse. For some outlines, I go so far as to rough out every scene, giving it a tentative number or letter. The irony of structure is this. Rather than robbing one of fluidity, it opens the floodgates to the organic mysteries of the creative process. It yields greater access to the subconscious as a bridge to the collective unconscious, that reservoir of archetypes Jung says we have access to. That language of images and their innate responses I say existed in our dreams pre-language and have become the language of the soul. Simply put, if I know where I am headed in a story, rather than being bogged down by problem solving while writing, my creative mind is free to capitalize on happy accidents, to connect dots intuitively. The best example that comes to mind is the scene in one of my screenplays in which a butterfly came in and landed, unplanned by me. It seemed fitting somehow, so I let it land. I left the detail B, without analyzing what it might mean. Sensing something numinous or profound about it, I made sure to bring it back. Then I went back and planted the motif earlier, still unexamined. The butterfly ended up being the strongest metaphor in the piece. Not in the cliche sense, as a symbol for transformation or metamorphosis, but as a symbol of the hope renewed by true surrender. The working title of the film was Giving In, and the main theme turned out to be the suggestion we must die to the self to be reborn. We must mourn our illusions and expectations of the world. It's freeing. More specifically, the secondary characters in the film, a married couple with whom the protagonist enters a sweet but not particularly healthy familial relationship, have returned to Monterey to see the return of the monarch butterflies on the course of their migration. Twenty years previously, on their honeymoon, swarms of them have descended on the hills and trees and lamp posts and buildings, lending magic to their new union. Their return to Monterey is largely a desperate attempt to recapture that magic, a last ditch effort to resuscitate their marriage. When the monarchs refuse to come day after day, hope wanes. It's then the couple find themselves adopting a surrogate, the orphan symbolically, that is our main character. Only when the third party removes herself by ending her life do the skies open up, yielding torrents and torrents of colorful monarch butterflies to paint the coastline. Only by knowing the end game is my subconscious free to connect dots, creating happy, quote, accidents. Only by having a game plan are we free to pursue breadcrumbs and see where they lead, knowing exactly how to get back on course. As this example illustrates, they plus the outline by becoming the more poetic, emotional thrust of the story being told. In my writing process, the worlds and characters I create take on a life of their own, seeming to live and breathe on some other plane. Writer Madeline Lingle has spoken of characters who simply had to die, as much as she hadn't seen it coming or wanted it to happen. And I experience similar demands from the worlds and characters my subconscious crafts. As if the story existed as a thought form in the collective, germinating until ready to be born. I am simply wrangling the story and giving it form. Another classic example of happy accidents I often cite in my teaching is an anecdote about one of my live-action film shoots. It clearly illustrates how when planning and structure are in place, the organic synchronicity of the creative process is free to play its part. Or more accurately, we are free to receive the universe's messaging. On the film shoot in question, my cast, crew, and I were on location near a double set of train tracks in the Mojave Desert. A pivotal scene at the film's climax featured a passing freight train. As luck would have it, the production team were unable to obtain the train schedule from the local transportation department due to the Threat of bombing. And so it was. In order to stay on schedule and therefore under budget, we planned an afternoon of capturing what's known as second unit shots, incidental inserts for ambiance and texture, while waiting for the all-important train to arrive. When at last we saw it coming, the director of photography instructed his crew to set up the extensive equipment needed for the shot, facing the set of tracks that correlated with the oncoming train. It was a mere speck at this point coming from the east. As the train drew nearer and our actors hit their marks, along with the vintage jalopy that also relied on perfect timing, our hearts sank. Another train had appeared on the second set of tracks coming from the west. It would undoubtedly interfere with our shot as framed. The trains were equidistant and traveling the same speed. Damn it. The divinely ordained opportunity to capture our money shot seemed foiled by chance. There was simply not enough time to hop the tracks and set up our shot facing the opposite direction. We all froze, unsure how to proceed. And then, for some inexplicable reason the first train came to a complete stop about a quarter mile away. The assistant producer raised a pair of binoculars and peered through tendrils of rising heat. He's taking a piss, he informed the cast and crew. The conductor stopped to take a piss. It was a freight train after all, no passengers to inconvenience. Apparently the need to empty one's bladder trumped sticking to schedule. The delay allowed us to capture our epic beauty shot without a hitch. Then as an added plus, we were able, camera crew, actors, and vintage automobile, to break down and reassemble on the opposing side of the tracks in order to catch the second train in frame when it arrived. The call of nature, and possibly a weak bladder, had gifted us a second chance to capture our epic moment. To this day it remains the best shot in the film, the kind one would sacrifice like a baby seal, were it not perfectly suited to the film's climax. A similar example had occurred years previous, when I was asked to contribute an oil painting to a group showing at Disney feature animation. I'd committed to the show and begun executing a rather ambitious oil painting I eventually titled The Struggle. It was conceived and executed in the old master's technique of glazing and scumbling. The piece was time-intensive and laborious, the kind of undertaking that makes me question halfway through what on earth I was thinking and what I ever loved about painting in the first place. It was the kind of undertaking that was also gratifying once complete. The image was that of a sinewy male nude, rendered from photo reference of a popular figure model at the time, rooted to the earth and struggling against vines that bound his wrists. At the time, in my late twenties, though the sense is vague and unfamiliar now, I was keenly aware of the conflict between flesh drives and loftier, more spiritual inclinations. The subject, naked so as to remain a universal symbol of all humanity, aspired for divinity. Figure arching toward heaven and illuminated by immaculate white light that spilled from a break in the clouds. At the same time, it remained earthbound, constricted by roots and vines. I'd nearly completed the main figure and the landscape to which it was rooted, but there was something missing. Intuitively I sensed the rising sun that broke the horizon behind the tangle of roots should be reduced to a symbol of some kind. The graphic shape was begging to mimic the gold plated ornament characteristic of illuminated manuscripts. For several days, deadline rapidly approaching, I meditated on the perfect solution. In the final hour, I kicked a small piece of folded paper in the hallway at Art Center, where I'd begun teaching. It banked off the base of a pristine white wall and plummeted into a stairwell. The stairs were independent slats which meant the peculiar folded triangle, reminiscent of notes one would pass to a classmate in the eighties, was free to land far below and wedge itself between two vending machines. Intrigued, and a possibly too available to adventure for my own good, I descended the stairs and ferreted out the object that had caught my attention. My hunch was correct. The paper was indeed folded in the fashion of a teenager's note from decades past, but even more peculiar. It was meticulously wound up in yards of magenta string. I began methodically unraveling the madly spun web. Ten minutes later I was able to unfold the paper it sheathed. As it turns out, it was a color laser copy printed on eight and a half by eleven copy paper. The image emblazoned thereupon was nothing less than a circular graphic, meticulously marked with ancient-looking runes. The concentric gold rings comprising the icon each contained their own band of letter forms, Arabic or Hebrew, or I had my rising sun. To this day, though the painting has hung on my sister's wall for twenty plus years, I have never had the calligraphic letter forms analyzed or sussed out their origin. It may be the ideal time to preface that I assign no great importance to myself in all of this, no special talent or access. We all have access to the creative process, synonymous with humanity and life itself. And we all have access to the reservoir of the collective unconscious that empowers the work and makes it resonate. Whether one subscribes to a cellular memory of human experience ingrained in our DNA, what we call instinct in animals, or insists archetypes are simply learned tropes. They come out of us innately when we tell stories, and we are wired for them. Emily Bronte is famed for having rarely left home or garnered any life experience at all, and still writing one of the most profound pieces of Gothic literature. A fellow writer and friend often takes a pedestrian stance on writing. He has regularly reminded me that one cannot set out to create great literature. I agree wholeheartedly, insofar as any fixation on outcome is death to the creative process. I also support any motivation to engage in the craft of storytelling, even a simple unexamined fondness for stories from childhood, with no desire to move mountains or change the world. I am equally lowbrow about writers and their goals, believe it or not, I assign no importance to them. What I do revere and are excited to explore, hence the book you hold in your hand, is the immense power of storytelling we are lucky enough to engage in. The innate wiring that ensures the moment we open our mouths to tell a story or put pen to paper, it has the potential to transform. I once read an interview with a well-known Hollywood screenwriter. It should be noted he was known for mainstream films, respectable ones. He claimed to concern himself with a superficial plot only. I don't bother with themes or meaning or significance, he said in so many words. I just write what happens. The president is saved from terrorists or not. My hunch, given the success of the man's work, was that his statement was a bit tongue-in-cheek. If not false humility, the joke is on him. Audiences will project meaning whether intended or not. As we've said, it's human nature to do so. No matter how well I've structured an outline, how many times I've rearranged those three by five cards or added turning points, there inevitably comes a time when I have to rethink exactly how things are going to play out. Not all details can be worked out in an outline, and I like the freedom to draw on life experience when fleshing out scenes, plusing them, adding to the resonance of fond or painful memories. Yet more mysterious and addictive is that when one is on a creative roll with momentum, the synchronicity inherent in the creative process is unleashed, full access. During the writing of many a novel, I found myself so high on synchronicity that the moment I leave the house, the universe provides just the right detail or drops just the right image, word, or conversation in my path that's meant to augment the story, to lend it richness and take it into new territory. The creative process is ever unfolding, and in the case of a novel, prolonged. The product of inspiration is meant to evolve along with the writer as his or her life journey unfolds. The most powerful art is that which is a direct reflection of spiritual and emotional growth in real time. In my own process, the most vivid examples of this synchronicity are nearly impossible to believe, even to me. During the writing of The Seeker, my mythic fiction meets visionary fiction novels set in Bronze Age Minoan culture. I referenced classical Greek mythology and the Minoan religion that predates it. However, I supplemented this canon with original myths as needed. I reached a point in the story in which I needed just the right myth to illustrate a point about, in essence, being careful what one wishes for. I was on the verge of fabricating one. The very day I was set to sit down and tackle the scene in question, the perfect myth literally came out of a stranger's mouth at my corner Starbucks, unprompted. On that very same patio, sometime later, an even more astounding, seeming coincidence took place. I was midway through retooling the main theme of the seeker while fleshing out a climactic scene in which it is imparted. I was just zeroing in on the perfect way to express it when I had to step out for caffeine. More and more the story had become about the dilemma in which the main character, the demigod, realizes the Council of the Gods has it in for him. This, of course, is symbolic of feeling one is fated to be a tragic figure or cautionary tale. That moment when it feels as if the universe has chewed you up and spit you out, and you've nothing left to offer. Some shake their fists at God or dig their heels in in defiance and forge a new legacy. Still others surrender and ask that God use them to do his will. The true message of the seeker was turning out to be this what the gods truly want is for us to assert free will in order to co-create with them. Fate or destiny is not meant to trump man's free will, only to dovetail with it for the greater good. The main theme in a nutshell centered on the powers of self-creation we are capable of, sometimes in defiance of perceived fate. The writing of the climactic scene and my spontaneous coffee run took place mid-pandemic. I was sipping my coffee on the Starbucks patio when my neighbor sat down at my table. Like many, he was discouraged by the months and months of lockdown, the restrictions, the surreal tone of life. I hadn't batted an eye when COVID came along, as I'd had my proverbial brush with death a year earlier, and the world had long since become unrecognizable. In fact, my close call is what had lit the fire to connect my craft with true purpose. The seeker was the product of that fire. I could not have been more inspired, motivated, or on fire creatively. When my neighbor sat down, my mind had been mulling over the half finished scene. In it, Zeus literally sticks his head between the clouds and appears to Amateus, the demigod protagonist in his darkest moment. The dark night of the soul. Amateus, an aspect of me, of course, finally confronts him about why it is the gods would have it in for him. I didn't share any of this with my neighbor. To say he was in a pissy mood would be an understatement. His usual bitterness, pessimism, and cynicism was jacked up by COVID, the Black Lives Matter movement, incidents of police brutality, and the political divisiveness dominating the news. I made some off the cuff comment that I wasn't playing, code for the fact that I had bigger fish to fry and didn't engage in the divisiveness that appeared petty to me in my state of broadened perspective. The brush with death will make almost anything seem trivial by comparison. I'm just trying to stay alive here, I said neutrally, assuming he knew I'd cheated death and endured a long uphill road toward recovery that meant I was both too old for this shit and more evolved spiritually than ever. A moment later, in the way of passive aggressives everywhere, he commented he'd heard some other folks whining that they were just trying to stay alive. Only they were speaking of mask wearing and social distancing, a far cry from my year-long journey back from death's door. But what the fuck they trying to stay alive for, he went on, when their lives ain't shit. I simply smiled, knowing even if he didn't know it consciously anyway, the message was directed at me. Knowing that my self worth has never hinged on outside validation, but rather on intrinsic value. Knowing that such assessments of another's worth are absurd, mine or anyone's. Knowing that when we look at usual suspects like legacy, a person's service to others or the community, the impact one has made on friends and family, or how many strangers one has touched, one can never assess another's worth from the outside. One can never judge such things. A bit later I gracefully extricated myself from a conversation that felt like a ton of muck and headed home to write. It only hit me later when I put two and two together. My neighbor's name is actually Zeus. No kidding. And what Zeus's voice was saying to me on that patio was that my life had no value on paper. He'd mouthed the very message I'd outlined for Amateus. It was haunting, and gave me plenty to draw on in the writing of the scene. Even with a tight outline, there inevitably comes a time when I realize I am not quite sure of certain details, or the precise nature of an ending. Whether that ending is intended to be bittersweet, redemptive, melancholy, ambiguous, open-ended, or even a happy ending with a nice bow on it, it is often a surprise to me that I actually don't know it as well as I thought I did. Inevitably, figuring it out becomes an exercise in making decisions for my own life. I sense the awesome responsibility in it, as if I'm writing policy and committing to it. At the same time, working through the bump in the road is a way of moving forward. In the true way of catharsis, I found myself unstuck by reconciling my views through writing, crystallizing my policy on something as big as human nature or specific to a particular theme. Nine times out of ten, getting quote unstuck involves mourning an illusion and thereby freeing myself or otherwise renewing my faith in the universe, in humanity, in order to go on another day. This is the true cathartic power of the creative process.