In “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” Ursula K. Le Guin argues that storytelling (and human culture) shouldn’t be defined by the linear “hero slays monster” narrative (the spear or arrow), but rather by a “carrier bag” model: stories that gather, hold, and weave multiple voices and experiences into a dense and consumable package.
Many scholars believe the carrier bag was the earliest human invention. It makes sense because before a weapon to kill for meat there was the forager and the forager requires a means of carrying and storing surplus.
This concept changes the very nature of story, technology, and business. All of which are commonly communicated as a conflict. The hero slays the monster. The winner vanquished their foes. However, there’s another way to see a story and human endeavors. That of a collection, a process, a gathering and storing of progress.
I see all human endeavors as art. Travel, exercise, business, and technology. Building a company or a new technology doesn’t have to be approached as a conquest. It can be seen as an act of collection for the greater good. We gather ideas, constraints, possibilities, people and carry these forward in a fungible form in an effort to advance and improve the experience for all people. The value isn’t domination it’s the creation of freedom through new possibilities.
Update: my wife told me she now understands why I buy too many bags.
Aaron Fulkerson 