Hardwired for Story
Men having kupati in Fregon
It usually happens in the sandhill country north of Pimba on the Stuart highway. I don't know if it happens for everyone, I guess not, but for me it is as palpable as it is subtle, and as perceptible as it is predictable. I call it a brain reboot.
In 1978, I completed a science degree. Wow, now there's a whole lot of interesting stuff. The old zoology labs smelt like formaldehyde, something between pickles and cat's piss. It's a carcinogenic embalming agent used to preserve specimens for study and dissection. Ironically, formaldehyde has been implicated in food contamination scandals along with the pesticide, melamine. Remember the Chinese baby formula scandal a couple of years back? Apparently the unscrupulous add it to foodstuffs to extend shelf life.
Anyway, as fascinating as Zoology is, I found laying out the innards of worms, fish and toads on a dissection tray unappealing. It seemed disrespectful. I was shocked at the way their parts were tossed away having discovered gastrointestinal tracts, investigated reproductive organs, separated circulatory systems, detached muscles, and exposed skeletons protecting nervous systems. Perhaps it is done differently these days.
When my attention shifted to Botany my sense of wonder was restored in a heartbeat, the moment I saw cytoplasmic streaming for the first time. I gasped at the exuberant amount of energy and movement evident in every single celI. Forget the embalming fluid, I wanted to work with living systems. I asked for an exemption for biometry too and got it. Most people said it couldn't be done. It was taken as given. How could you understand the world without making statistical analysis of biological data? But I was somewhat nonchalant about the dependency of meaning on statistics having developed a phobia for mathematics after a failed attempt at engineering. Is it usual to discover our most passionate interests by first excluding everything else?
This brain reboot I mentioned is something else. The consciousness that observes metrics, measures weights, calculates distances, compares volumes, records time and values currency, is only one of the many possible operating systems for the human brain. The reboot that I have come to relish is one that experiences the world as a mythic landscape, one in which every mountain and every gully is revealed in story, every plant, animal and human being connected through kinship, every claypan and creek-bed a setting for song, the common language poetic and the thing valued most, is freedom.
After completing a B.Sc. in Botany I went on to Sydney Teachers College. Fascinated by Steiner Education philosophy and how story plays a central role in learning, I went looking for a recommended text by Bruno Bettelheim, The Uses of Enchantment. It was out of stock and the attendant suggested, Joseph Campbell's, Hero With A Thousand Faces as a substitute. That book stayed my companion for the next decade. I went looking for an aid to teach children and came away with a tool to explore my existential delima.
People and surroundings can be manipulated by applying the metric brain, it's true. It is good for accumulating power, status and wealth. It goes without saying that it is indispensable in science, technology and economics, but that's a different story. The narrative brain operates differently. It connects us to meaning, to each other, to our place on and in the world. It craves connection, relishes paradox, searches for consensus, and celebrates relationship. For me story is the fundamental operating system of consciousness. If it doesn't have a story it didn't happen, doesn't exist and is going nowhere.
As I continue driving north to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands I glance to the left and remember of those "minyma kujera", the two sisters, mentioned in the Rainbow Serpent post. From Piltilti they came hunting as far down as the lakes to the west. It's a song line of about 700 km, but hey, who's counting, There are songs to guide you to waterholes and bush tucker all the way. The songs recount ancestors and the making of country. They bind every juicy bit of life itself into one organic whole and make their singers cry with happiness.
earth connected men
remember each others stories
rebuild the future
