“You know, this is amazing because for the last few days I didn’t really get any question about this method, although it is quite an impressive and effective one. Everybody uses stories, you know, some are doing it well and some are doing it well, but not in an effective or influence or both ways down…
and see, right as I write to you, I am reminded of that first time I ever read a story that truly influenced me. I am not sure if you are familiar and know this one—the Catcher in the Rye. It is truly a lovely story that does influence you in many ways.
Two of the ways that it has impressed upon me were exactly what I thought they would be, but much more—first, I started seeing people around me that acted exactly like that kid in the story…now who wrote that one…hold on, let me use my neurons well…
Who wrote it? I believe, J. D. Salinger. What is that J. D. anyway? Is it a shortcut or is it his name? Anyway, as I was saying, I read a lot of stories. Some are good and some are not…
and you would think that all a good story needs is a good plot, but it isn’t so, at least so I believe, because you see, I believe a good story challenges your beliefs…
it doesn’t really matter which beliefs, or how devoted you are to them, but I think it is essential that you be challenged. Otherwise, what’s the point of paying twenty bucks for 300 or 400 (how many are those today anyway?) pages of a fiction. It’s not real, you know…
Just like the unconscious isn’t real. It’s a fiction, you probably know this by now, but let me tell you how I thought of it: I think the unconscious is a fairy tail, because you see, no one can point out exactly where in our brain or even in the whole nervous system which lies all over your body, you know, where is it then? …can you touch your nose with your right finger and tell me whether it’s there? …
how about your eyebrows? …
neck? …
back? …
stomach? …pancreas? …little piggie?…and that little piggy went to the market… my grandma did this gig to me even when I was well grown up (in fact, I was 22 years old). She kept telling me I don’t eat enough, though she only saw me like maybe once a week.
A great woman she was, even as a nana (grandma) she kept telling jokes, even dirty jokes!
You’d be surprised how funny it is that your grandma is telling jokes like these…and isn’t that just not only amusing but gives a sense of youth-full-ness, gratitude and relaxation…
now double that because she did tell extensively funny jokes. anyway, I miss her.
I was talking about the unconscious not being real. …you know it isn’t. …can’t point to it, can’t put it in a barrel (old meta-model conspiracy)…it’s a nominalization. It’s actually a process, or more so—a group of processes that is just it—unconscious. In other words, it is all the processes of your nervous system that you are not aware of at this specific moment, because you can’t pay attention to many different things at once as you read this. …because you know, as you read this you have to first let your eyes catch the letters and form them into the words that I have written previously, and then let your inner voice form them into auditory conversation that is way inside your mind. …that’s consciousness. …now, while noticing you’re blinking and your ever deeper breath, and friend—you don’t have many conscious options…all the rest is the ‘sub’ of consciousness. And because you don’t pay much attention to whatever happens outside of this scope of reading these words and making sense of whatever I’m saying, it is surely important to us, I believe, to screen our reading list. Read the stories that worth reading, read things that challenge our beliefs—there, I said it again, didn’t I? …a challenge…
A story that will make you think if the way that you interpret reality is the reality itself. Harry Potter did it for many children. And Jerome David Salinger did that exactly in his Catcher in the Rye story…oh, yes, that’s it. JD is Jerome David…ahhh, I remember.
Right. Now…he wrote many books, but that was the book that got my attention. Catcher in the Rye is marvelous, truly, go read it if you can.
I can still remember its main character, Holden Caulfield, a 17 year old boy, who’s also telling the story…that boy is troubled with that transition from boyhood to adulthood. And he got me thinking so much, you know…
Amazingly enough, not everyone reads stories, and not everyone who reads stories is reading the right stories. And even those who are writing stories wonder why their stories are being read less than others who write even less-seemingly-interesting stories…and that’s because the language the most popular writers use is more effective and compelling. And my goal here was to expose one of many methods to influence others by doing a series of stories with nested loops.”