@philosophyminis: In 1972, Borges wrote an essay called The Four Cycles, where he argued that there are only four different kinds of story. Every book, every movie, and every fireside fable follows the same four narrative arcs. But more than this, every human life will follow these arcs as well. Because, after all, the stories that we tell reflect the lives that we live. These are the four stories. First, there is the siege of a city. There is Agamemnon besieging Troy, Seven Samurai defending their village from bandits, Attack on Titan with the heroes behind their walls. Second, you have the long return or journey home. You have Odysseus returning to Ithaca. You have Dorothy trying to find their way back to Kansas. And Dory searching the great ocean in Finding Dory. Third, you have the great quest or search. You have Jason and the Golden Fleece, and the Knights trying to find the Holy Grail. You have Frodo trying to throw the ring into Mount Doom. Finally, there is the sacrifice of a god. Jesus is crucified, Odin sacrifices himself, and Gatsby dies along with the ideal that he embodied. Borges's point is not to say that these stories are boringly repetitive, but to remind us that humans are not actually that much different. This is known as ‘structuralism’ in philosophy, which says that there are universal common structures to the human condition. But this doesn't mean that all humans are the same. While it might be that there are a few basic shapes to living this life, the details of those lives will vary. We all want to defend what we value. We all want to find our way home. We all want to search for what is missing, and sometimes we just have to sit back and watch as the world goes down in flames. And so, it's a fun, or possibly sad, question to ask yourself. Which of these four stories do you find yourself living right now?

Jonny Thomson

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Sunday 06 September 2026 10:40:51 GMT