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Slack.com slash DHQ. So as many of you know, I spent most of my life as a novelist if

you listen to another kingdom or read Werewolf Cop or True Crime, you know that I'm actually

incredibly good at it. And I've studied stories all my life. And very early on, I came upon

an essay by a famous essay by a German, I think it was a mythologist who wrote about the

following incident. A professor is at his desk, he's trying to work, his little daughter

is annoying him. And finally, just so he can concentrate, he takes three matchsticks that

have already been burnt so they're not dangerous. And he hands her the three matchsticks and

he says go and play. So she'll leave him alone. So she goes off and plays with the three

matchsticks and one of them is Hansel and one of them is Gretel and one of them is the

witch. And she's playing with the matchsticks. He goes back to work and he's working for about

20 minutes. When suddenly his daughter lets out a shriek of terror and the professor leaps

up and he looks at her and says, what's the matter? What's the matter? And she says, the

witch, take the witch away, I can't touch the witch anymore. It's a matchstick, right?

And then the professor writes about the fact that this is the way stories and mythology

work, that they transfer power from the imagination to the emotions. So we all go through this

when we're watching a movie or watching a TV show nowadays and the heroine dies, say

and we all cry even though we know she doesn't exist. She doesn't exist and yet our hearts

...