Torus or open-endedness

Stories have respective beginnings and ends. However, readers’ interpretations can be infinite. Hence, stories are often described as open-ended.

Different from ancient times, stories have come to be possessed by specific authors, rather than common goods. Accordingly, readers too have become owners of their interpretations. Readers may freely interpret stories in innumerable ways, but their interpretations suffer from limitations which are imposed upon themselves. The open-endedness of stories is getting more and more individualistic.

Worlds that stories describe are not susceptible to private ownership. They intend to unite people by showing the wholeness of the world. Theoretically, it is possible for any individual actors to understand the wholeness. However, when it comes to (re)union of people in reality, the wholeness understood by each individual becomes problematic.

Torus is an image which is often represented by means of mandala. I speculate that the Internet in general and such platforms as Medium in more specific terms can be mandala in which many people get united by means of stories. While people may continue competing for superiority of their own interpretations of reality by invoking reputations, numbers of followers, pageviews and clicks, they at the same time collaborate in editing and re-editing various stories. Mandala is said to be originated in Buddhism whose Scriptures were edited in the congregations. It also denotes a circular image of reincarnation, which blurs beginnings of the universe, including individuals. The metaphor of torus for stories and their infinite interpretations might give us back stories as a means for realizing the world in its wholeness through strengthened social ties by the power of words.