>>"The world is like the impression left by the telling of a story." Yogavashishta.

the world IS like the impression left by a story.
we live in a world of illusions, dreams and uncertain facts. the things we don't know outnumber the things we do. even the things we know are things we think we know. we celebrate going to the moon, as if the moon were far away. yet we still wonder if there's water there.
and what is the moon's meaning? we "know" it's a rock orbiting the earth, but who could ever explain our reaction to its silent light moving "as if it hardly moved at all" (hardy), and lightening the way for lovers to walk home through strange streets.
myths and stories reveal our deepest truths. when you see romeo and juliet, it's not just THEIR story that makes you cry all the way home on the tram. don't you feel it defining your own tragic love affairs? the love affairs you wished you could have had?
we arrogant present-ists enjoy pretending aloofness to these things, but they reverberate like a whale's call in the deep: a truth that echoes through the places we haven't explored, and sounds to us in dreams and moments of extasy.
the "facts" don't help at these times. only stories can help us trace the echoes of our emotions back to those felt by people in former times with the courage to record them.