Boing Boing. Nevver. Daily. - Peter Nidzgorski, X818. Astroariana, L'astrologie naturelle. My Colargol And Me. The laws of narration dictate that all stories must start somewhere. This poses a problem when describing events that have actually happened, since in the real world old stories constantly spawn new ones in an infinite succession like the buds of Romanesco broccoli, and what may at a cursory glance look like a complete story in its own right can turn out to be just a meandering side note for a much larger and more profound story.
It would be tempting to start this particular story with a bear, but before that there was a mother telling bedtime stories to her son, and before that there were other stories that led up to that story, and at some point all those stories will fade into that great oblivion that haunts the most remote borders of our perception. Hence, it would appear to be the case that putting a finger on a timeline and proclaiming that right here a story started is a rather arbitrary way of presenting the succession of events.