“Once upon a time…” and “A long time ago…” we began to make sense of the world by telling stories.

 We told them around fires when nights were truly dark, in whispered prayers on our knees as children, in bedtime rituals with storybooks. And as we grew up, we continued them in silent inner commentary. We told them to help us find our place in the cosmos—to comfort, to connect, to remember, to warn, to inspire, to wonder. Over time, we came to live within them, finding meaning where maybe none was to be found. Our stories became the maps we used to navigate the vast, ungraspable terrain of life—to keep the unknown at a safe remove and generate a bubble of illusion that wraps us in a cocoon of conformity.