The human mind is a storytelling machine. The creation of narrative is hard-wired into us. What we call “memory” and “imagination” are essentially just stories that we program into our minds as a survival mechanism to protect ourselves and to help us thrive. We are what Jonathan Gottschall called “storytelling animals.” Our minds abhor abstraction—from the beginning of time, humans have used character and story to make sense of the mystery of life. We need our lives to mean something. It is a kind of mental illness if we cannot shape our experiences into a story that gives our existence a
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