March 1, 2017 – Tell a Beautiful Story

There substance was a resonant harp of self,
A net for the constant lightnings of the spirit,
A magnet power of love’s intensity
Whose yearning throb and adoration’s cry
Drew God’s approaches close, sweet, wonderful.

Sri Aurobindo, Savitri, Book III, Canto III, page 328-29

Tell a Beautiful Story

Don’t you think there are enough ugly things in the world without one’s giving a picture of them in books? …what is the use of imagining yet worse things than are already there? If you imagined something more beautiful, a more beautiful life, that would be worth the trouble. People who take pleasure in writing ugly things show a great poverty of mind — it is always a sign of a poverty of mind. It is infinitely more difficult to tell a story beautiful from beginning to end than to write a story ending with a sensational event or a catastrophe. Many authors, if they had to write a story which ends happily, beautifully, would not be able to do it — they do not have enough imagination for that. Very few stories have an uplifting ending, almost all end in a failure — for a very simple reason, it is much more easy to fall than to rise. It is much more difficult to end one’s story on a note of greatness and splendour, to make one’s hero a genius seeking to transcend himself, because for that one must be a genius oneself, and this is not given to everybody.

The Mother

The Great Adventure, A Diary for All Times, page 264