Stories Are Everywhere
One of the universal qualities, regardless of socioeconomic, racial/ethnic, religious, etc. background, that ties us as human beings is our ability and desire for creating and sharing stories. It’s the oldest form of communication there’s been throughout the history of mankind. The true beauty in stories is how they have evolved and take on many different shapes.
According to Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, the definition of story is:
Story: an account of incidents or events
Not all too exciting, right? I’m sitting down right now writing this blog post. It’s gloomy outside on a Sunday morning as I have my tea. That’s an account of events and incidents right there, but it isn’t too exciting now. What if I capture all of these events on camera and voice over a moment by moment type of experience like YouTube vloggers? Now we’re getting into new territory, and that leads me to my next point.
Stories are all about communication, and communication takes on varying forms. For sake of simplicity, there are three mediums of communication that immediately come to mind:
Written
Verbal
Visual
Each medium has a host of forms that we’re so used to consuming:
Written
Books
Blogs
News articles
Emails
Text messages
Verbal
Music
Podcasts
Conferences
Lectures
Phone calls
Visual
Movies/TV Shows
Logos
Graphs
Sign language
Photography
There are so many more mediums that one could tack on to those brief lists. At the end of the day, each and every medium has its own essence, structure, and tone that is perceived differently by the senses of the beholder. The two main questions regarding story I’d like to poke at going forward are:
Why are stories important?
Where do stories come from?
Let’s unravel the first question: boy does this go down an existential path. From my perspective, stories are important because they are the means for knowledge and progress. Think about what we are all doing with our lives and what we envision the rough trajectory of it to be in the near and distant future. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to say we’d all much rather take one tiny step forward than some steps backward during our lifetime. What constitutes a step forward and a step backward is a whole other topic for subjective discussion, but we’ll carry on with the notion of universal human wants that we can silently agree upon to drive the post forward.
Now for the second question: this is where it gets juicy. In my opinion, stories come from our own internal desire to be heard as well as either to make or to bring meaning to something. Every single moment, we are naturally creating a story inside of us to take us from one moment to the next. Heck, I don’t know what my next sentence here is going to say or be about, but I’m drafting up ideas in my head to sound smart and drill home a point or to find some clever, creative idea that might even surprise myself… who knows. The beauty and curse of this process is the fact that I’m the storyteller’s first listener, so my perception is the only one driving it forward thus far.
Whether we know it or not, we are always taking part of or creating a story. Us living through the crazy times with the covid-19 pandemic and social injustice movement, me writing this post and thinking about what I want for lunch, you driving to the grocery store and trying to remember if you had enough milk in the fridge, etc. are all forms of expression that can be turned into stories and compelling ones at it too. Like many of you, I’ve found the mundane, day to day tasks we do to be uneventful and not worthy of being conveyed as a story meant to be shared. This is where I’ve found inspiration from photographers and visual medium storytellers to be of great inspiration.
When photographers showcase their final products, we as the consumer of their work more often than not are astounded by the image. What we little know is that if we were placed in the time and place where the photographer originally took that picture, we might not have even seen something worthy of capturing onto the camera in the first place. The photographer snaps the picture, and while nice with all of the preset settings on their camera, it isn’t close to even the finished product; they invent the story from seemingly what is nothing to the non-photographer’s eye.
The photographer’s analogy points out how stories can be created from seemingly nothing if you’re willing to massage the substance a little. No great story comes out of thin air without some thought behind it. I say this because we’re living in an age where storytelling is omnipresent, and your desire for storytelling, in whatever form, shouldn’t be quelled.
I’d like to encourage all of you to go out and create stories! Start small and with mediums that most suit your stylistic strengths and preferences. I started out with blogging since I’m more comfortable working with a planned out form of communication in the form of writing. Additionally, I was never a good writer growing up, so this is a way for me to practice writing and express my jumbled up thoughts in a more coherent manner. The journey creating and sharing stories has opened up my eyes to the vast amount of knowledge around us at any given second. I’m excited to be venturing into new story mediums in the near future as well!
For those of you who can’t find a story, need look no further than to your own life story. The best stories come from a source of vulnerability, and I feel as if we can grow more connected as humans if we’re willing to break down some of the walls and let people in a little more. I started this entire blog with my first post, The Power to Instill, where I shed light on a dark period in my life that spurred me on to begin writing. You too can start from something small and personal and let that carry you on to yet another story that is beyond what your listener self could have ever imagined seeing.
“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.” - Jonathan Gottschall
