Polite Conversations: Happily Ever After

Every day, little girls and little boys across the world open story books and they feed their minds with their content. Some are about love, others about mystery, adventure, science and the list is ever expanding. However, the classics are stories that travel through time and take on lives of their own. They are retold by parents and caregivers who read them in their youth, to their children, and are recognizable by almost everyone who's ever opened a book. They get made into television series, or movies and other art forms, and become in their own ways major influences on culture.

You see, a story is not simply a story - especially when it is retold and retold. A story is a teacher in itself - it has something to tell, and the reader is the listener. When one listens, especially to find meaning, one begins to imagine, and in this way, the reader's concept of reality changes, especially if certain agreements are made with the content of the story.

The selected classics for polite conversations are tales about love, the single most powerful force in the universe - the very thing that could change the world. Every day, little girls and little boys are taught to dream about love by the stories we feed them, and through the years, this impacts our very idea of what love is, and the ideals of a good relationship. It might seem like a simple story, but it sets the foundation of what will qualify as love some day for our children, and what will even lead the pages of their lives.

Although many environmental factors come into play, like the family dynamic children grow up in, among other types of influence such as music and television, in every little girl's mind, subconsciously, there is a princess waiting to be saved by the love of her prince, and a prince who believes he must conquer the world for his princess, and both these characters have ideal traits for looks, intelligence among others. But we exist in a diverse world, and love in a fairy tale does not accurately reflect the truth of our reality.

I know, its just a story, and yet stories are never just stories. They influence our reality in so many ways. For this reason, Polite Conversations - Happily Ever After takes some of the most recognizable tales a tad deeper to delve into the background, to imagine it differently, to ask, "Yes, but what if it were so and so?", in hopes that a little girl or boy, or perhaps fully grown ones, will come to appreciate a deeper kind of love.