Every story is either about love or death. Nothing else in life can keep our attention.

Stories of death are focused on violence and domination. The most violent channel on cable has always been CNBC because there’s nothing more violent than money. We like to believe that our own private empires can be built without friction and for the good of all. But the reality is that money gained is blazed with a trail of destruction — competitors vanquished, markets disrupted, wealth distributed upwards.

I engaged in some pointless discussion this week with the fans of “One Battle After Another” about how much influence Thomas Pynchon had on the finished product. Along the way, I read someone on Threads bemoan how the lead actress in the film heavily sexualized herself in the role.

I knew better than to weigh in, but the reality is that the movie has only about a tenth of the sex that ‘s in “Vineland,” and yet people still complain about it. It also has roughly ten times the violence and no one bats an eye at it. In fact, it’s part of what makes the movie so acclaimed — the non-stop action. Never mind the blood and corpses. Can anyone explain what positive outcome resulted from all of this death, beyond the survival of the chosen protagonists?

Having sworn off violence as much as I can, I’m then pushed towards stories of love. I’m ok with that. The only problem is that I don’t tend to believe those tales. It’s not that I disbelieve in love, it’s that I see romance as a trap. Happily ever after only results because the story tellers stop narrating. Hang around for another year or two and what’s left? Probably quite a bit less love, and more personal empire building.

If all of this sounds sour or cynical, I intend quite the opposite. I think we need to refine the ways we tell stories. We need to tell tales about violence without glorifying the acts of violence. We also need to tell love stories that stop pretending there’s ever a winner or loser. A real love story is about how one person changes another.

As I come to the end of the Dekalog series, I don’t believe that any filmmaker has come close to Kryzsztof Kieslwoski and his dozens of collaborators in advancing the art of cinematic storytelling in this direction. Is the series perfect? Of course not. Some episodes meander and add up to very little. But all of them attempt to do something profound — not give in to the lazy, default ways we see the world.

Laws, rules, and enforcing bodies have never changed the hearts of human beings. But I still believe in moral progress — and it begins with the stories we tell about one another.