Story Telling is the ultimate human activity. May 9 2007
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People often talk about "tool making" as being the thing that sets humans apart from the animal kingdom. But lately I've heard that not only do chimpanzies make tools by fashioning termite extractors out of twigs, but certain types of ants fashion sticks and leaves to help them achieve their goals.
What people seem to be missing, is thae fact that even though chimps, and even ants, can make tools, it's only humans that can tell stories.
Stories are at the core of the human learning process. They are what we use to understand the world, it is how we define our relationships between each other and how we come to understand the connection between our actions and the expected outcomes in our lives.
Stories are the primary glue for the communities we form. A story defines who is part of our family and who is not. My observation is that women, mothers in particular, are the family's primary story teller. Their interweaving and interpretation of family events forms the core of the story that the family members tell the world about themselves. A healthy story creates a strong family with successful family members. A weak or destructive story does the opposite.
Story telling as a tool for community building goes far beyond the family and is used by community and national leaders who attempt to pass on a shared story of who we are as citizens and which events and the values are the ones that bind us together.
The stories we tell determine who in our society becomes wealthy, who is put to death, and who we pick up a gun and go to war with.
On a business level I have noticed that each and every corporation and government department has its own story. A sales person moving between organizations and departments can easily pick up the buzz or the jargon which is unique to each organization. The art of making a corporate sale requires that they learn the corporate buzz and then spin it back to the potential customer. On the back spin they make sure that their product, their services, and their company, have become integrated into the prospect's original story.
On a personal level. I believe that many of the people who frequent psychologists and psychiatrists are actually suffering from a broken story. The therapist's job is to help the patient create a new story which gives them hope and energy and creates in then realistic expectations about what they can expect from the world and the people around them. Too often a broken story extends beyond the individual to the people who surround the patient; repairing a story by focusing on one person at a time may not be possible.
What do I define as a "broken story?" If we were to think of our story as being our road map, then a broken story is one that causes us to bump into things, sometimes at high speed.
Faulty expectations lead to disappointment, hopelessness and even depression. A good story, like a good road map, helps us to make decisions that lead us to where we wanted to go, and give us the sense of personal self control and self esteem that goes with these kinds of success. Broken stories can also be stories that are hurtful and destructive to the people around us. Ultimately by damaging the people around us, we weaken and damage ourselves.
In the end, our shared story is the one that we negotiate with family, friends, and coworkers. It defines: who we are; our relationship with the people who create our world; and our personal identity as we ultimately come to understand it.
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