We've been telling stories for eons. They shape who we are and what we believe.
I recently interviewed for a job at my university in which the recruiter asked, "what inspires your creativity?" I was caught completely off guard by this question. I had been anticipating the usual questions: "Tell me about yourself?"; "Why should I hire you?"; "What are your qualifications?". So when I got asked this question, I could feel a nervous sweat trickle down my back.
Breathing in and straightening my posture, I replied: "my creative inspiration comes from stories. For me, stories are all about change. If I find a story that inspires me to change something about my life, whether it be my perspective on something or whatever, then I find my inspiration. I ask myself 'how can I also create something that will impact people in a special way?' From there I challenge myself to create something that will cause that change."
As the interview went on, my answer to the recruiter's question swirled back and forth in my mind. While I was impressed that I came up with an answer like that on the spot, I also wrestled with another question, "why do stories matter in the first place?" It's a question I've been mulling over in my head for years now. When I started developing SENTIENT, my first ever blogpost was going to be the one you're reading now. At the time I had just discovered my passion for storytelling.
I wanted to convey why telling stories mattered so much to me and why we should all pay attention to the influence that stories have in our lives, but I couldn't find the right words to express what I was thinking. And then I attended my first year of university a year later and took a class called Introduction to Storytelling. In that class I learned the basics of storytelling. What is a story? What is the difference between plot, story and narrative? How does narrative impact the way we perceive information?
These are all questions my course instructor hammered into my brain as I sat attentively through all of his morning lectures. For the first time, I was beginning to understand that stories are more than works of fiction or non-fiction with a beginning, a middle and an end. Stories can be collective historical archives of any given culture or society. They can be lullabies to sing children to sleep. They can even be used as a political tool of mass destruction-- divisive propaganda that spews hate and bigotry. But they are also the basis of transmitting moral truth. Take religion, as an example.
Religion cannot exist without stories. Stories of God saving his people. Stories of salvation and martyrdom. Even philosophical questions and debates are arguably understood solely because of narrative. I may not be a narratologist, but I don't need to be one in order to tell you that we are a storytelling species. We tell stories on a daily basis. It's how we communicate and connect with one another.
I believe the first time I became acutely aware of this was when I started organizing movie nights for my family during the height of the Covid-19 Pandemic. These weekly family movie nights became a bonding moment for us in the midst of what felt like 'the end of the world'. We set up a time to meet and watch the movie in our living room and when the movie ended we would talk about it, each of us sharing our perspective and what we took away from the narrative. After that, we felt compelled to share whatever was going on in our lives. We would discuss our personal struggles and then we would discuss our plans for the upcoming week. Finally, to wrap it all up, we would close with a prayer.
Looking back, I can recall the spiritual sensations of togetherness those movie nights evoked. I cannot, however, imagine that those moments would have happened if it were not for those movies-- those stories. We are living in an era when an entire family can be living in the same house but not speak to one another because they're all on their own devices, doing God knows what. Sometimes that was my family-- each of us wrapped up in our own devices-- too consumed to actually sit down and be with one another.
For a brief moment in time, stories on the TV screen became the reason that we laughed together, lamented together and prayed together. Those stories became more than just structured works of fiction. They became our catalyst for communion with one another.
I am dumbfounded by the way stories bring us together. They draw us in by setting the scene and then they subvert our expectations and reveal to us that which is hidden. Let me know in the comments below, how have stories and storytelling impacted you?
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