Ghostwriting: Before Once Upon A Time
Writing Sample – Before ‘Once Upon A Time…’
Kate Jonuska • Names and details changed
The beginning. Every story has a beginning.
Once upon a time in the beginning, there was a set of eyes that looked out upon a set of stars. These eyes saw the daytime world filled with plants and animals of infinite variations. They saw that the depth of the night sky was thick and yet intangible, forever out of reach for earth-bound hands. They looked around to find themselves alone and sought to name and explain these many wonders that surrounded them. They were the first of many to pose mankind’s universal, existential questions:
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
Where am I going after this life is over?
Once upon a time, these questions were answered by religions that developed during aboriginal evenings around campfires with parents or tribal elders proffering crude creation mythologies to explain the existence of the glittering stars of the night sky and the bountiful beauty of the Earth below them. These explanations often included the participation of otherworldly beings or animal spirit gods who began in an empty vacuum and created everything in the universe out of nothing in an instant—Creatio ex nihilo.
Then, human consciousness and civilization evolved. Even so, we are still surrounded by religions in the present day. Their structure and doctrines have changed over time but their function is still the same. They are “once upon a time” stories that explain humans’ place in the world and/or the world after this one. Religion is the lens that our scared, lonely eyes use to look at the universe and not feel alone, unsure and powerless in the thick of the unknowable night. Religion can often act as a step-stool for earth-bound humanity, giving them the boost they need to feel that the stars are within reach.
For many, understanding the world around us and how it was created—or who created it—is a matter of religion, or faith. There are the dogmas of Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, Hindu and others more numerous that there are fish in the sea. With so many alternate versions of “true” religion, the faiths that were meant to explain our world and make us feel solidarity with our fellow men instead can be divisive, violent weapons we wield against each other. We live in a world ripped apart by the stories that were supposed to bring us together.
Even worse, faith can go further than these traditional religious definitions to encompass every group who has a common dogma, world view or the same set of answers to humanity’s questions. Political parties, governments, educational institutions—don’t these groups also have common faiths? Much like religions, they explain the world to their members, show them how to act in that world and predict the future. Don’t these institutions also act as divisive forces that segment humanity into smaller groups instead of bringing us together?
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