"Weâre talking about a claim to storytelling. We are taught that a valid or useful education is one in medicine, science, bioengineering. That storytelling, or the âliberal artsâ, are defunct or fading. Yet, in the Fortune 500 companies, in the Googles, the Amazons and the Facebooks, theyâre obsessed with storytelling. So you can have technology, but itâs moot if you do not have a story to provoke it. We also see this in political campaigns. Theyâre all about manipulation of story. I agree with you a hundred per cent, the urgency of the moment now is to create new myths.This is also informed by Buddhism, because Buddhist practice is so interested in lucid dreaming. Monks constantly practice lucid dreaming. If you can be aware that you are dreaming, then you can also be aware that you are being foggy or ignorant in the living stage. This sharpens your ability for discernment, and the capacity to look at the world more clearly. Buddhism is very clear to me because it is this feeling, above all else â above even the object â that matters. So reading is not about the book, itâs about the transition of the thought, orchestrated through language, into the brain. Thatâs why itâs so real to us. I think thatâs very true to how we live: sometimes the feeling is much more than the world can support. Thatâs why myth-making, like you said, is where weâre going. Thatâs the future."
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Buddhists from the United StatesEssayists from the United StatesPoets from the United StatesImmigrants to the United StatesVietnamese Americans
Original Language: English
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On the Western idea of claiming storytelling in âINTERVIEW WITH OCEAN VUONGâ in The White Review (March 2022)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ocean_Vuong
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Ocean Vuong
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