Why Following Your Heart is a Bad Writing Tool
“Most Westerners today believe in individualism. They believe that every human is an individual, whose worth does not depend on what other people think of him or her. Each of us has within ourselves a brilliant ray of light that gives value and meaning to our lives….but in fact every person is born into a pre-existing imagined order, and his or her desires are shaped from birth by its dominant myths.”
-Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Human are soul-searching fanatics. They gain nearly nothing but a few inner beliefs that sustain them temporarily to live peacefully alongside the disarray still pending for improvement.
In Yuval Noah Harari’s terms, this is called an inter-subjective imagined order (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind). In today’s age, it is packaged beautifully by the term Follow Your Heart. This is standard practice for creative individuals who want to also make money or happiness out of their art. To understand why this is the worst way to write, break down this last statement.
Standard practice refers to that imagined order.
It is an extremely powerful collaboration around a fictitious idea. It has no empirical rationale, and is not found to function anywhere else in Nature except within humans. Humans are a grand…
