I love stories, I am a romantic… I love tragedy, comedy, quests… I love it all because I love to be swept up into a journey and feel the rise and fall…It is important for me to not run away from sadness and fears, because without diving deep into darkness, we would not know the light.
Taken from the article, ‘Are There Only 7 Stories In The World?’
“Many academics, most notably author Christopher Booker, believe that there are only seven basic plot structures in all of storytelling – frameworks that are recycled again and again in fiction but populated by different settings, characters, and conflicts.”
More recently (and perhaps intriguingly) the University of Vermont took a leaf from one of author Kurt Vonnegut’s theories and used powerful computer programmes to analyze 1,737 fiction stories. The purpose was to track the emotional content by looking for words such as ‘tears,’ ‘laughed,’ ‘enemy,’ ‘poison’ and so on. They describe building happy emotions as rise, and the sadder emotions as fall.
Their results concluded that there were six basic master plots:
“Rags to riches” (rise).
“Tragedy,” or “Riches to rags” (fall).
“Man in a hole” (fall–rise).
“Icarus” (rise–fall).
“Cinderella” (rise–fall–rise).
“Oedipus” (fall–rise–fall).
I am always thinking about the stories we play out in our human forms. We are many stories, we all write new books, and each book has different chapters. In the same way as when one story ends, another begins. When one door closes, another opens. Closing physical doors of two studios, which are the protagonists in my world, meant I opened up some emotional doors.
Initially I was devastated to walk away from the physical buildings of Wild Wolf’s and The Wild Box. My love, my soul, every single cell of my body feels weaved into the bricks and mortar…I sat in the sadness.
Listening to the Wolf Cast Episode 6: A Building With a Life Of It’s Own and hearing my dad talk about the soul of the Stock Exchange building, I knew I was not alone in feeling the magic, the love, the sense of history and belonging that a physical space can create. I wondered if Mr Wolff’s destiny/dharma was always to resurrect the Stock Exchange building? Was it my dharma, to always be here? I like to believe in these bigger universal ties and things being written in the stars. So to walk away, where my very heart and love is tied with ribbons to the the bricks and mortar was devastating. It is somewhere I feel completely at home.
What felt harder was closing the shutter on a new love. The Wild Box. This is an extension of us. Two worlds colliding: Wild Wolf’s & Sweat Box Gym. Was this always written in the stars? Maybe… Our Wild Box is in the initial and early stages of physical transformation, although emotionally it has been transforming for a while.
I have had the joy of being part of the build. The men that have worked on the project are nothing short of heroes. They have put great skill, care and laughter into the shell of our building. I have loved hanging out on the site and listening to their conversation and watching them bring the building to life. The building site is a philosophical playground. Banter, storytelling and beautiful pearls of wisdom.
When I was asking Mower what the next steps were on site, he said the groundwork, the real hard work is done now, ‘You’ll see.The building will start to build itself.’ I stared at him for ages. My first thought was ‘that sounds magical and sooooo philosophical…’
We built something we believe in. Built on a shared passion. That is a powerful, right? And the story, the plot for The Wild Box right now? Taken from Pedro Bessa’s philosophy: ‘It is what it is.’ My last words as I surveyed it one last time. ‘Yep, it is what it is. And you know what? I love it. I just love it.’ Words of a romantic. And Pedro, ‘I do too… but if I could have just finished the ceiling. Just needed 5 more bits of plasterboard.’ Words of a perfectionist. There are some things that can’t be rewritten ;-). And I burst out laughing. And felt a little lighter.
