Awhile ago I tried to write a post about stories and fractals. I have lots of little written pieces that I’ve accumulated over the years as well as an unpublished research paper connecting education, expression, health, community, environment, motivation, and meaning. In these, I figured I had all the material I needed to write the post; quotes from prolific psychologists and writers explaining how our brains are wired to think in stories, articles outlining research on fractals; how they reduce our stress and aid in healing processes, my own writing connecting the two together and outlining how they both affect our sense of meaning. The funny thing is, every time I read through my post, it didn’t sound quite right. I wasn’t happy with it. I’ve rewritten in multiple times, clarifying and distilling it down. The last attempt ended up a very shortened version split into two separate posts. When I pressed my lovely editor for feedback they replied,
“As I re-read, I’d say they sound incomplete. Break them apart and try to make each one a story, beginning, middle end.”
I’ve been writing a post about how we’re wired to understand stories, yet using a clunky, point by point format to do it. I can’t have readers missing out on this fine bit of irony, so I’m admitting to you; yes, I did that.
And now I’m telling a story. A story about my process in writing about stories and fractals. I’m not sure how many posts it’ll take, but that’s ok. This is a fascinating topic and can easily be related to almost anything in existence. Fractals and Stories, what else is there?
To begin, I’ll show a piece musing on expression and character that I wrote before I had much of the research under my belt.
“If expression flows from creatively communicating oneself, the truth of what you are will affect your expression. Are we in turn affected by our expressions? At least to the degree that we see the effects they have on the world around us and how that in turn affects ourselves. It seems to me that there is also the effect that interactions with other people and things provide new reference points for understanding. It then seems that the learning affects our character thereby giving us some sort of flowing, back and forth relationship between expression and character.
We also see the expression of others and the expressions of nature. These all leave an impression, they communicate something about character. Trees express themselves without even knowing it (Possibly). They reach and grow, blossom and die, tugging on our heart strings the whole way. There’s a deer across the road, she was looking at me funny.”
This little piece ended up fitting nicely with my later research. So we will build from there.
On a side note, do you notice the stepping back I’m doing? Having difficulty explaining something, I revert to talking about how I’m having difficulty explaining something. Now I’m even writing about how I’m talking about how I’m having difficulty explaining something. Now I’m writing about how I’m writing about how I’m talking about how I’m having difficulty explaining something. Now I’m… oh nevermind. Wait, is this a metaphorical fractal?