Why The Heck Do We Love Stories?

For millenniums mankind has been captivated by the essence of a story—writing on walls, canvas, paper, sand, tress, and anything that was convenient. If art proved to be a medium not strong enough to carry a particular story man resorted to oral tradition—that is telling stories by word of mouth.

The brilliance of storytelling knows no culture or age or ethnicity. I think it is safe to say that everyone is drawn to it. Hollywood and the fiction publishing industry, which is still going strong despite fierce competition from things like music and video games, would attest to that.

So, what is it about storytelling that leaves human beings so drawn to it? How is it that ancient stories like Troy that were written by Greek writer Homer still ring true to many people or that parables taught by Jesus about two thousand years ago still have people learning from them?

Well, I feel the answer (or answers, because I feel it comes in two closely related pieces) is simple:

1      1. We as human beings are programmed to love stories.

Now, before you start rolling your eyes and making funny faces, read on. Have you ever sat in a boring lecture with some over-educated man who has the oratory skills of a baby and you were praying that somehow a large brick would fall from the sky and crush him (hahaha, okay, your imagination probably wasn’t that evil), then he was like, ‘this reminds me of a story’ and suddenly you got a second wind in you and you were attentive. As a sort of exercise think of as many incidents were something similar happened and then ask yourself, why?

I bet now you know what I was driving at now, don’t you?

Okay now we move on to number two.

2      2. We as humans look for life’s answer in stories.

‘What? That’s stupid!’ I know that’s probably the reaction am getting from some people but again I ask you to bear with me. A story usually has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Life follows the same pattern, we’re born, we grow up and eventually we die. However, the difference between a story and life is that in a story we often see the big picture because we have gone through the different frames and it’s often more simplified. On the other side we are often stuck somewhere in the middle of life and I know everyone can agree with me that life can get complicated.

Okay, now I think I have some backbone to work with. Now you see, when we watch, listen, read something that mirrors life we naturally try to connect the dots and look for answers from characters that echo the challenges we go through. I know this sound silly but I have met quite a number of women who place their expectations on things they saw in romantic movies, which usually has disastrous results. (Before you object, just think about it with an open mind). Further, it goes to mention that sometimes the sort of demand on the youth to be trendy, fashionable, socially-acceptable stems much from the movies that seemed to have taken over Hollywood. If you probably in my age group you remember American Pie (what ideas did that put in our innocent brains). Many movies follow the pattern nowadays with movies like Hangover trying to portray the over-consumption of alcohol as good and its results, comical.

That brings me to the last and most important part of this blog.

The power of storytelling is double-edge sword. On one side, if used wisely can be a great source of fun, entertainment and most importantly a vehicle to transport good morals to the masses ( Jesus, anyone?). And on the other hand it can be used as a manipulative weapon meant to rape the minds of the masses. Something I think many (but not all, am a realist not a hater) Hollywood movies are guilty of, as they feed young minds thirsty to fit false aspirations and virtues that in the end only destroy them.

If you are a storyteller of any type, be it author, director, musician (yep, you too), poet, evaluate what message you try to convey in your stories and if it benefits society.

If you are a consumer of stories (we all fall in this category), test what stories are good for consumptions.

DON’T BE FOOLED, WHAT GOES IN MUST COME OUT!