"...Our teachers, parents, friends, (entertainment/news) and peers contribute to the on-going story. They give us only the description of the world they know - their perception of the world. It may not be how the world really is. We ourselves contribute to the story of the world every moment of our existence by thinking and believing in what we have been told.
The stories we tell ourselves form our social and cultural values. This means that our stories, tales, fables, anecdotes, parables, proverbs, and colloquial expressions are the backbone, the building blocks, of our society as a whole, and our modern culture on the planet Earth.
For the last few thousand years, the stories that have dominated our consciousness, in most modern cultures, are the stories of mankind’s rule over the natural world, of the sense of separateness from nature and from each other, and of our self-gratifying pre-occupation with our ego-mind.
No matter how simple and seemingly insignificant, our stories are the real cause of many global social and cultural problems such as war and violence; fear of the natural world and separation from nature; pollution, environmental destruction, and the loss of wildlife habitats; over-consumption and materialism.
Imagine if most of our stories were teaching us some virtuous value, or encouraging us toward a positive action.
“Kill two birds with one stone” would be “Feed two birds with one seed.”
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world” would be “It’s a happy-dog-splashing-in-the-pool world.”
“Take as much as you can, before someone else will” would become “Take only what you need, leave the rest for others”.
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world” would be “It’s a happy-dog-splashing-in-the-pool world.”
“Take as much as you can, before someone else will” would become “Take only what you need, leave the rest for others”.
