Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Unlimited Power:
What is behind the old impulse to share stories with our fellow human-beings? And what about the impulse to crave, listen to, see or experience a good story? From Neanderthals grunting stories to each other in a state of heightened excitement around a camp fire in a cave to pass the time in the evenings, to the latest Hollywood summer blockbuster movie, storytellers, good ones, have held our attention, nurtured our imaginations, stirred our emotions and in the process entertained and educated us. Stories simply seem to have unlimited power over us. Just imagine life without them. No books. No movies. No TV. No jokes. No rumor mills. No news, etc. It's almost beyond the power of the imagination. Life would be so very different, indeed.
So, the "need for story time" is part of who we are. Stories define us like nothing else. We find life's meaning through stories. We communicate our emotions (fears, anxieties, desires, obsessions, likes, dislikes, hopes, joys and pleasures) and our beliefs (religious or political) through stories, both consciously and subconsciously. Stories tell us who we were, and who we are, and who we're going to be. We are storytellers, all of us, whether we think of it in those terms or not.
Storytelling is the original therapy. We learn everything in "therapy". Our moral, behavioral and social codes. We seek affirmation and hope in tales about people like us. Tales that we can relate to in one way or another. We seek solutions to our problems. We need resolutions. Swift and joyful if possible (read happy endings here). But if that's not available, we'll settle for a lot less like just about anything that brings some relief to or escape from our reality. We are addicted to stories. We need them to keep going. We need that high only a good story has. We're hooked.
Personally, I got hooked on stories (or at least it became the defining experience for me in this respect) as a little boy. My grandmother would try to put me to sleep in bed with a good story which she would invent along usually as she told it. She was the best storyteller. She knew how to hold my attention. Her secret? Her stories were always about me. She made it all very personal. She would tell me stories about "Luben, the Detective", or "Luben, the Jungle Explorer", or "Luben, the Sailor", or "Luben, the Adventurer", or "Luben, the Space Traveler", or "Luben, the Archeologist in
Usually, my grandmother would tire after a while and start to nod off in mid-story, that was the moment when I would bring her back with a single "AND?" Well, let's just say that it took a really satisfying story to put me to sleep. I wouldn't settle for a half tale or something lacking in good resolution... My grandmother soon realized that and did her best, but I kept those "AND?" interjections coming whenever necessary. Eventually, I would hear a good ending (read satisfying enough to me) and release grandma from her storytelling duties. Then I guess I went to sleep feeling like some
The next best thing as far as storytelling experiences came with watching the original "Star Wars". A highlight in movie history that will always be special to me. The experience was such a memorable one that to this day whenever I see and hear the Fox Studios logo with its music I associate it with "Star Wars". I remember the theater where I first saw the movie and who I saw it with. A good story will define a moment in history. It will emotionally brand it in our minds.
