How tales work for 3 kinds of men
The Halt
There are those souls that are lame. They may be born so, or they may be maimed in the course of their growth, or they may be twisted and bent at some point in their adult lives.
The nature of what lames them differs from man to man. One may be withdrawn from the society of his fellow-men, shy, ferocious; another may hate with a burning hate some men who are different from him; another may feel less than other men, that his kind of men are less than others; another may have some memory out of his past that he can’t shake but must return to over and over again; another may long for what he lacks; another may seek to justify what he has in the face of others who lack it.
These men use tales (whether they create or adapt them as talesmen, or seek them out as audience) as a way to salve the wounds that lame them. Through these tales they become whole again. They find the society they secretly long for; they gain vengeance on those they hate; they lift themselves and their kind above their rivals; they return to that treasured past time and live it out again, maybe altering it for the better and undoing past mistakes; they gain abundance where they had lack; they are acclaimed and justified in what they have and hold, by the very men whose lack disturbs them.
The tales these men like, are as lame as their souls, but in a different way, usually complementary. The tales offset the wound and turn it into a kind of strength.
I do not know if the use of such tales helps these men, or if it maims them more.
I belong to this kind, and my tales are of this kind. Indeed: most fiction belongs to this kind, as do almost all reveries and day-dreams and wishes.
So we can say that there is a kind of tale that is halt itself, and lamed: it is the kind these men crave.
The Hale
The ‘healthy, hearty’ souls among us, are let us say well-rounded. They are not perfect, but their flaws are minor and do not rule their lives. There is little else to say of them but that they are the kind of men that we think all men are (or ought to be).
These men use tales for relaxation or recreation, but only in a minor way. They tend to like humorous tales; a good laugh relaxes greatly. But all in all these men like best practical tales, or what we call nonfiction.
And we can say too that there is a kind of tale that is hale and healthy itself: this is the kind that hale men enjoy. But they do not crave it the way the halt crave and long for their kind of tale. The hale man takes his tales in their place, at the end of a busy, active day, when there is an hour for rest.
The Holy
Then there are the souls that rise above what we think of as common men. These are the true-born dreamers, the geniuses, the prophets among us, and they are very rare. But a thread of this soul runs through almost all of us, if we say that it is what draws most men toward religious worship.
These souls are not content with the world as they find it. They seek something better than what they are given. There are different kinds of seeking, and different kinds of paradise. Some may seek for universal justice, or freedom, or equality among men — these are the dreams that grow up from the soil of Earth. Others may seek for the transcendent, for God, for Oneness, or for freedom from the chains of Earth.
So we can say there are holy tales that belong to Earth and envision a Paradise where we walk, and there are holy tales that aspire to that which lies beyond.
There is a link between the Holy and the Halt. There is no gulf between them, nor any clear line, but rather there is a slope that rises or sinks between them. Prophets have been called madmen, witches have been hailed as saints. It is not easy, sometimes, for those of us who sit in the clay to tell the difference.
But we common men may take and use such holy tales — even the hale among us. We use holy tales to inspire us to work and strive beyond what lies just outside our grasp. We use holy tales to uplift us, and to see how what we do today on this hour may connect to what our descendants may achieve and enjoy. We use holy tales to help us endure present hardships, sure that some better time will come.
(Composed on keyboard Tuesday, April 8, 2008)
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