Part 5 of my celebration of Ben Okri’s wonderful collection of essays, A Way of Being Free, published in 1997.
I love this book, it’s a poetic and beautiful homage to storytelling, writing, creativity and freedom, presented with a positive spirit of human flourishing and connectivity.
Quote:
"There are two essential joys in storytelling. The joy of the telling, which is to say of the artistic discovery. And the joy of the listening, which is to say of the imaginative identification. Both joys are magical and important. The first involves exploration and suffering and love. The second involves silence and openness and thought. The first is the joy of giving. The second is the joy of receiving. My prayer is to be able to write stories that, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot, can be read so deeply that they are not read at all, but you become the story, while the story lasts. With the greatest writers, you continue to become more of the story long after you have finished it. Of the two joys, the first teaches us humility, while the second deepens our humanity."
From the essay, The Joys of Storytelling 1, in the collection, A Way of Being Free (1997)