Story and denial, fact and counter-fact, news and fake news - the call and response of society and politics in this world of hi-tech, high-speed communications is loud, complex, and confusing.
While the truth rests on the editor's desk, scrutinized by the fact-checkers and the lawyers, the rumours, spin, and propaganda are already spreading like a blizzard of termite queens seeking new homes as the summer afternoon storms approach.
Only some will find a fertile place to lodge, but those that do will feed and breed in the darkness, spreading out to consume and corrupt the structure that took them in. Soon, unprotected, adjacent premises are being eaten away from within, and the rot spreads.
Every story we read, whether it be labelled Fiction or Non Fiction, contains varying quantities of objective reality and subjective truths, blended by the author to achieve a certain aim, and interpreted by each reader according to their own experience-based filters. Many an author (or poet, or movie maker) has been utterly astounded by the meanings that readers have taken from his or her work - many readers are astounded when the author declares that "that is not what I meant by those words"
But, we live by stories - they make a foundation that underpins our lives, and offer us ways to understand the swirling world around us. Stories offer us hope in the grim times, and hold up the warning hand of bitter experience as a caution against our naive optimisms.
Like the great cables of twisted rope that hold the ocean liner fast to the dock, the vast story of humanity contains within it so many twists of lesser stories, wound about each other in complex spirals that add strength to the whole.
Or like a tapestry stretching the length of human existence, only partly visible to us in the light of the present, and always under construction at the edge that leads into the shadows of the future, the stories add strength, colour, and sometimes even pattern, to the whole.
Flawed stories, stories in which truth is twisted or absent, stories darkened by malice or anger or envy, stories twisted by the teller for personal gain - all these stories can mar the patterns of the great tapestry, or weaken the cable. Stories of fear and despair make the world a smaller, darker place. If such stories are being told by people in positions of great power, the damage wrought can be much greater, too.
Tell your story, add some light and colour to the larger story - read or listen to the light-filled stories of others, and join your thread with theirs to brighten the picture of the future. The human story grows and brightens when such stories are added to the weave.
Your story contains the stories - at least in part - of those who you knew or lived with or worked with or watched or read about, just as the present is built on and from the past, yet also shaped by the stories we tell ourselves about our futures.
It is too easy for the dominant stories of the day to overshadow the many stories being told by fainter voices - yet those stories, less widely known but far greater in number, have made their own unique contributions to the greater picture, and deserve our remembrance.
Consider books such as Radical Sydney and its associated blog, that try to keep alive stories of Sydney, recent and ancient, that often contradict the "official" line, and might have otherwise faded from view. Those who seek to impose their paradigm on a culture or society often try to bury the stories that present opposing viewpoints, but dissenting stories can be very hard to stamp out.
Consider the fiction of Robert G Barrett - though many of his later works contained fantastical elements, they also contained traces of those same stories of the other Sydney, while his early books and short stories painted scenes and portraits that would be instantly recognisable to anyone who worked or lived around the eastern suburbs of Sydney in the seventies. Only the names were changed, and some of by not very much.
As a parting thought, I've heard it said that the Silly Season in Australia begins on Melbourne Cup Day, and ends on Australia Day. It seemed an odd thing to say, for a moment, but then the memories began to flood back - of holidays and parties and birthdays and bushfires and sunburn and storms - and it suddenly seemed apt, because no matter what the weather or the world situation was trying to throw at us at the time, there was always, somewhere, a bunch of Aussies throwing a party or putting on a barbecue.
Yet the beginning and the end of the Season are marked by days about which so many different and often conflicting stories are told. For every story of victory at the races there is at least one opposing story of fortunes lost, or horses or jockeys killed or maimed - and as for Australia Day, if you don't know about the conflicting stories gathering around that day then, what can I say. You must have been partying extra hard not to have noticed that particular barney.
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