Storytelling

One of the things that I’ve grown more to appreciate in the past decade is storytelling. When I was at my lowest, I started to write about a djinn and his mission. His death, resurrection in hell, his mission to find the weapons and way to invade heaven, his fatefull meeting with Gosamah and Gilgamesh, his trip to the ocean planet followed by his trip to the panther planet, his discovery of his state, his hunger for sustenance and what was the start of his adventure amoung the immortal flies. I had planned to take him on several more adventures but then life started getting in the way again.

It was when I wasnt writing about the djinn that I started writing about the structure of storytelling and of the heroes journey that overlaps a purchase journey. Yeah…thats right a purchase journey.

A heroes journey will be when a normal person receives a mystical call to action and then leaves the familiar behind to journey through danger and mystery to meet a goddess, find a weapon, flee to safety and fight the danger. There may be beasts, twins, kings, masculine, feminine, friendship, puzzles, sadness, darkness and shadow, ressurection and a victory and always a return home to share the spoils of victory.

A purchase journey on the other hand is when a normal person sees an Ad and experiences a need to accomplish something, they do some research, get some recommendations find the thing that they want and then they buy it and enjoy the product maybe telling some people about it and having some after sale interaction with the seller. This will happen via TV, Radio, Print, OUT of home signs, letter drops or the hundreds, maybe thousands of digital mediums that now exist all of which are a type of the non digital channels.

How these two worlds intersect is that they are directed at individuals and their psychology. The Awareness is the call to action, the research and recommendation is the trials and tribulation with help from others, the purchase itself is the battle and climax and taking home of the item(s) is the return home.

There are very few movies that successfully subvert the heros story. Most movies follow a three act structure and the purchase journey is divided into three parts.

I also watch and appreciate the works of Dan Harmond the creator and writer of Rick and Morty and Community. He is a student of the Heros Journey and you can see that his writing is perpetually trying to subvert but at the same time confirm the hero’s journey formula. I am a big fan of Rick and Morty. It’s deliberately badly drawn, imaginative and but crude and neurotic. What it is however is a conflict between nihilism and the heroes journey. Will Rick and Morty be meaningless? Will it be meaningful? Don’t know. It could be the balance between order and chaos that makes the show appealing. I don’t think that Rick and Morty is for intelligent people, it’s for aware people. The adventures through the green portal are adventures beyond the door of perception.

In a way, the more I know about the heroes journey, they less appealing stories become to me including writing them. I also recently read the Aolus Huxley book doorways of perception. That book is referenced in Marvel’s Doctor Strange and covers Huxley’s mescaline fueled musings about our self imposed neurological limitations. Storytelling is a cage, good storytelling is good cagebuilding perhaps hence good stories are captivating. A free mind isn’t bound by stories. whether is the stories made up by authors, journalists, scientist, politicians or others trying to influence you to buy their products and services. A free mind has no reason to bind others and maybe this is why I appreciate destructive things and appreciate stories but couldn’t bring myself to continue.

We’ll see. Order is needed.

L

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