Controlling Consciousness

"..It has been claimed, for instance, that the reason there are more poets per capita in Iceland than in any other country of the world is that reciting the sagas became a way for the Icelanders to keep their consciousness ordered in an environment exceedingly hostile to human existence.

For centuries the Icelanders have not only preserved in memory but also added new verses to the epics chronicling the deeds of their ancestors. Isolated in the freezing night, they used to chant their poems huddled around fires in precarious huts, while outside the winds of the interminable arctic winters howled. If the Icelanders had spent all those nights in silence listening to the mocking wind, their minds would have soon filled with dread and despair.

By mastering the orderly cadence of meter and rhyme, and encasing the events of their own lives in verbal images, they succeeded in taking control of their experiences. In the face of chaotic snowstorms they created songs with form and meaning."

Page 128.
'Flow - The Psychology of Optimal Experience'
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi