Fables & Fairy Tales
In his 1947 essay “On Fairy Stories,” J.R.R. Tolkien wrote that a creator should “hope that he is drawing on reality,” to shape the qualities of his world.
Dirt • Dirt: Worldbuilding, Pt. 2
'Once you were a child. Once you
knew what inquiry was for. There was a time when you asked questions
because you wanted answers, and were glad when you had found them.
Become that child again: even now.' —C.S. Lewis
The Case for Not Sanitizing Fairy Tales
plough.com
“The fairy tale acknowledges that parents do not always love and care for their children as they ought, that loved ones die and leave us alone and grieving, that evil is real and often powerful, and that violence and sin are present in our world. All these truths make grownups uncomfortable; we are eager to smooth over a child’s fears with comforting falsehoods.”
"Some day you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.”
— C.S. Lewis
What you learn about the world through fairy tales is to accept things that may not make obvious sense. Trust that there is order behind them, and by doing so slow down the entropy of life.
Shane Parrish • The Great Mental Models Volume 2: Physics, Chemistry and Biology
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