5 Quotes & Sayings By Chester Elijah Branch

Chester E. Branch has been writing and teaching for more than twenty years. He has written more than twenty books including the bestselling novels The Last Lone Ranger and The Last Cowboy. His book, NO MAN BROUGHT TO ME, was a finalist in the 2013 Texas Christian University Fiction Contest Read more

He has also written short stories and a novel for children, as well as essays and a book on storytelling techniques.

1
Often person X can only find happiness when they feel that person Y can see how happy they are.. This is the lowest level of happiness - what I call the tyranny of happiness. I like how Brian Miller draws a contrast between the tyranny of happiness and true joy.“ Unlike [the tyranny of] happiness, joy is never in our power. It’s not something we can make or choose for ourselves. Instead it’s the sensation that Lewis says jumps under one’s ribs, tickles down one’s back, makes one forget meals and keeps one delighted. It’s an enormous comfort, under all this pressure to be happy, to remember that you don’t have to be in control. You can instead be surprised by joy. — B. Miller . Chester Elijah Branch
2
Many groups use the media and successfully manipulate what Theodor Adorno calls our psychological frailty. This psychological frailty correlates to anxiety. It also precedes and foments fascism, sexism, and racism. Because of our sense of free will, day-to-day anxiety can creep in as a form of guilt or the desire to belong / be loved. It is this frailty that is manipulated which may later be expressed in fascism, nationalism, sexism, racism. It's based on superego storytelling. But what's going on concurrent with all this is a shift from storytelling to storymaking. There's an entire subgroup, mostly the younger generations, that have been participating in gaming and social media in a way that will bring about a new synergy. This is Hegel's dialect approach to society. Jane McGonigal talks about this in her book Reality is Broken, Cathy Davis talks about this in her book Now You See It, Clay Shirky talks about this in his books Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody. Tapscott talks about this in his book Wikinomics. Chester Elijah Branch
3
To paraphrase Muggeridge: Everything is a parable that God is speaking to us, the art of life is to get the message. Chester Elijah Branch
4
People don't really want original stories. they want different versions of the same story. this is called meta-narrative. Chester Elijah Branch