“Storytelling is the way that unarticulated memory becomes art, becomes artifact, becomes fact, becomes felt again, becomes free. Empires have been raised and razed on much less.”
— Amanda Gorman
“We who make stories know that we tell lies for a living. But they are good lies that say true things.”
— Neil Gaiman
I’ve now had the occasion to talk about storytelling a few times here. Once, in an essay for the Good Men Project’s “Why I Write” series, and then again in a story about NY’s homeless, which was also a story about storytelling.
I’m back at it again. Because, well, “storytelling is life.”
It is the most human and most essential tool for innovation and for social change. Our power constellation of Imagination, Empathy, and Connection; all revolve around storytelling.
The ability and power to create and believe in mass fictions – money, geographical boundaries, religions – and then use them to organize and in turn to shape and change our reality is what differentiates humans from other animals.
(Brains manifest.)
If you don’t believe me, consult Yuval Harari, Neil Gaiman, Kurt Vonnegut, Leslie Marmon Silko, or Amanda Gorman. Oh, and also Kyle from South Park.
I’m pretty sure that they all believe this about the great power of our stories and fictions. I sure do.
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As explained in this terrific Washington Post article about Marvel’s Black Widow and Hawkeye:
Fiction matters. You don’t have the luxury of getting to know most people. But fictional characters you can learn inside and out. You see them in situations most people never get to face; you watch them grow and change; you get glimpses of their interiors that most people, even the people you’re closest to, never afford you. You internalize them and make them a part of yourself. They, and their stories, accompany you wherever you go.
South Park said this incredibly well in its Imaginationland episode. “It’s all real,” Kyle says. “Think about it. Haven’t Luke Skywalker and Santa Claus affected your lives more than most real people in this room?… And the same could be said of Bugs Bunny and Superman and Harry Potter. They’ve changed my life, changed the way I act on the Earth. Doesn’t that make them kind of ‘real.’ They might be imaginary, but they’re more important than most of us here. And they’re all gonna be around long after we’re dead. So in a way, those things are more realer than any of us.
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“Fiction isn’t bad. It is [a] vital [tool]. Without commonly accepted stories about things like money, states or corporations, no complex human society can function. We can’t play football unless everyone believes in the same made-up rules, and we can’t enjoy the benefits of markets and courts without similar make-believe stories. But stories are just tools. They shouldn’t become our goals or our yardsticks. When we forget that they are mere fiction, we lose touch with reality.”
— Yuval Harari
“All the true things I’m about to tell you are shameless lies.”
— Kurt Vonnegut
“I will tell you something about stories. They aren’t just entertainment. They are all we have to fight off illness and death. You don’t have anything if you don’t have stories.”
— Leslie Marmon Silko
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