Serendip is an independent site partnering with faculty at multiple colleges and universities around the world. Happy exploring!

Home › Mental Health and the Adapting Brain ›

Reply to comment

Paul Grobstein's picture

stories: a cross-cultural perspective?

Submitted by Paul Grobstein on Mon, 10/13/2008 - 5:12pm.

Assuming your father isn't either American Indian or Nigerian, there's an interesting cross-cultural similarity here. The following is from Thomas Young's The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative ...

"The truth about stories is that that's all we are. The Nigerian story-teller Ben Okri says that "in a fractured age, when cynicism is god, here is a possible heresy: we live by stories, we also live in them. One way or another we are living the stories that are planted in us early or along the way, or we are also living the stories we planted -- knowingly or unknowingly -- in ourselves. We live stories that either give our lives meaning or negate it with meaninglessness. If we change the stories we live by, quite possibly we change our lives.""

If we take that seriously, what does it say about "mental health"?

Reply

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.
5 + 12 =
Solve this simple math problem and enter the result. E.g. for 1+3, enter 4.

Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities

Scanning electron microscope image of SARS-CoV-2

Remote Ready Biology Learning Activities has 50 remote-ready activities, which work for either your classroom or remote teaching.

Narrative is determined not by a desire to narrate but by a desire to exchange. (Roland Barthes, S/Z)

What's New? Subscribe to Serendip Studio