Every now and then I think about David Attenborough's brilliant narrative strategy, and how to apply it to my own writing.
I remember a nephew, when young, happily watching baby seals, then happily watching baby polar bears, & then... having his love for both brought into conflict.
Or following a chick's struggle to fly off a cliff face - cheering when he didn't crash! - just to get snapped up as prey.
To hold it all in tension & not despair is one of the greatest challenges of being human.
@MLClark Understanding that life is a balance, and that all life is sustained by its opposite, death, is a hard lesson.
Everything mortal has its season to grow, its season to thrive, its season to fade, and its season to end, no matter they be predator or prey.
Life is iterative, life never stops though the individual stops, but within every being there is a spark of the eternal that will go on.
Endings are commas, not periods.
I'm not sure it has to be a hard lesson, which is why I'm reflecting on what makes Attenborough an excellent storyteller. His approach allows each critter's struggle to have value *and* be part of something bigger.
A lot of Western narrative trades on individual exceptionalism, which leaves more critters in distress when their "main character syndrome" runs into the reality of ecosystems indifferent to individual thriving. Poor storytelling creates more trauma than necessary.
@MLClark That is an incredibly insightful observation. I'm honestly humbled, I'm chewing on that one.
I am firmly with Attenborough, it all matters, every life and every death. He has my respect for treating each with the nobility they deserve.
Agreed. :) I'm still chewing over how to improve the execution myself. Thanks for joining me in the mental nom, fellow writer of better worlds! 😊
@MLClark I am in full brain storming mode at the moment. I've already got the opener for today's chapter worked out, but I've found existing on coso and engaging as inspired helps me put things together.
^_^
@MLClark I have sometimes contemplated that the true test of a species' evolved sentience is its ability to leap beyond Darwinism by helping along the weaker in its species.
"Social Darwinism" (the policy of 19th & 20th C eugenicists) never did grasp the fundamental fact of natural selection: that what makes one the "fittest" is contextual.
20th-century research built more accurately on this concept by illustrating the evolutionary benefit of so-called altruism, & other facets of herd species life. Discovering the acculturated difference between bonobos & chimps solidified this understanding: we are evolutionarily better together, in many contexts.
Also: We shan't mention how TERRIBLY the Star Trek franchise depicts evolutionary theory the vast majority of the time. 😉
@MLClark And most of those episodes were written or at least edited by a certain writer infamous for his weird crap scripts. 🙄
@MLClark @WordsmithFL Yes! Theorists who believe that competition and cooperation exist exclusively as an either/or polarity have missed a key component of reality.
The cold, calculating imperviousness of their scientific theories disregards nurture which coexists with struggle.
This to be seems driven by prioritising rationality over emotion, a project that goes back 1,000s of years. Many scientists have been swept up in this project without even realising the arbitrary choices they've made.
👍🏻Historically, it comes from reading data through one's cultural moment. The junk science of evo-psych (not to be confused with the better work of behavioural studies) starts with preconceptions & works backward. Arguments for competitive evolution rise & fall with the researcher's culture: its fixation on specific demographics & views of masculinity.
Scientific method will correct for error over time, but individual scientists are *always* vulnerable to cultural subjectivity.
🏳️🌈
@MLClark The death of the one makes the many stronger. Without such struggles, life for the whole ceases to grow and entropy drags it toward extinction.
Hail Brother Tech Priest!
I have more music for your labors against chaos today...
@NiveusLepus
Thank you for sharing the find!!
//@MLClark
(History nerd aside:
In the early 19th Century, Malthusian ideas about exponential population growth & natural overshoot took hold, haunting people with the reality that nature was not "designed" for all to thrive.
Darwin was a sentimentalist about this, too - he hated what evolutionary theory suggested about natural cruelty, saw zero sign of a benevolent creator in nature's torturous ways, and suggested that readers try to imagine that death usually came quickly and the "happiest" survived.)