Reading belle hooks is as good for my soul as reading Walt Whitman has ever been. I have been slowly working my way through Teaching Critical Thinking, savoring the fleeting chapters of "practical wisdom." In a chapter on how helpful stories are for the learning process, she shares one of her favorite stories. It goes like this:
"A student seeking to understand better the process of self-actualization goes to the teacher and says, 'I often suffer from a split mind, a lack of congruence between what I think, say, and do. How can I end this suffering?' The teacher tells the student that the potential for this split is happening inside everyone. For inside all of us there is a 'sick self and a self struggling to be well and they are in conflict.' When the student asks the teacher which self is winning the conflict, the teacher replies, 'whichever self you feed.'"Philosophical, empowering, 100% belle hooks.
As I may have mentioned, I am terrible at taking advice. You cannot simply tell me what to do and expect I'll do it, even if I asked you for advice. I need to see the reason behind your advice and I need to see the values behind your reasoning, and I need you to acknowledge that I've thought about this so much already that it's a ridiculously complex issue that you may not fully understand unless you're in the mood for a very, very long story. At it's best, advice only helps to clarify my own reasoning and the values behind them. However, because we may disagree or, even more likely, I may feel that your advice doesn't take the culmination of my experience into consideration, I am still left with little confidence on my issue.
On the other hand, the best stories of wisdom rarely tell you directly what to do but help you think through your own complexities and, at the same time, are empowering. Even stories that don't resemble zen koan, just good, nuanced stories that aren't your own and help you get out of your own head and your own frame of mind help you figure out your own experience in a delicate comparison/contrast.
People are complicated, life is complicated, and that's why we need stories to help us learn.
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