Issue 34: On Umbrellas in the Snow, Regret and Joni Mitchell, and Becoming a Revolutionary

What detail surprises you in this photograph?

 

Jackie from Burtch Designs “had to look at this over and over again to realize an umbrella is being used in the snow!” 

 

Here's the mini story Jackie told: “Cindy thoroughly hates to get her hair wet. She knows her job is not glamorous and doesn't require a certain aesthetic to remain employed, but she thrives when she feels put together each day. Snow on her early morning commute through the streets of New York can't put her down or ruin her beloved updo! Not today, Mother Nature.”

 

Can you find a surprising detail and use it to start a story?

Congrats, you've just sharpened your ability to identify emerging possibilities.

First name / Reader, , would you like to be featured in an upcoming issue? 

Certain works of art help you empathize with others.

 

One example is Joni Mitchell's holiday heartbreaker, River, from her Blue album. 

Mitchell uses a narrative invention that triggers empathy in your brain: she discloses how she's hurt someone and she expresses her regret. 

 

Two ancient social emotions compete in your brain: justice and empathy. You lean into justice when someone behaves in a way that's anti-social.  You reject them for the wrong they've done.

 

Empathy evolved in your brain to counteract justice. It's activated when you have a justice response, but the wrongdoer apologizes, owns up to their bad behavior and/or expresses remorse.

 

The thing is, you don't always trust apologies or take the time to listen for regret in real life. In fact, you're more likely to extend empathy to real people after experiencing fictive regret. 

 

Mitchell's remorse-soaked folk song is one place to start. 

Why do we do this exercise? 

So you get better at identifying what you feel and why. 

So we have a reference library of literary works to help you alleviate hard feelings when they hit and to flourish by building up stores of positive emotions. 

You can learn more about the narrative techniques that increase empathy in chapter 3 of Wonderworks.

 

 

 

 

If you chose Option B, you have the kind of commonsense that could make your signature first on the next Declaration of Independence. 

 

Commonsense is your ability to match the newness of your plan to the newness of your environment. 

 

How did John Hancock go from self-involved dandy and political gentleman to signing the Declaration? He read a pamphlet called — what else?— Common Sense. 

 

Thomas Paine's pamphlet persuaded Hancock that the situation had funadementally changed. The era of Kings was over and it was time to forge a new understand of what business and entrepreneurship could be. Hancock responded accordingly and joined the fight.

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