My grandpa used to walk to the one room school house he went to before school started to light the fire and heat the room each morning. He would then walk home and have breakfast and go back again with his sister when it was time for school.
He was born in 1908, and from what I can gather, he was eight years old when he did this. Eight.
That was a story told to me by my mom, and again by my sister, since she is older and would remember more information. I may have the details off slightly; it could be he was six and had to hike five miles up hill both ways to get there. But I can’t be sure. And of course, my grandpa isn’t here anymore to verify the details. If he was, that would make him 118 years old. Not bad.
That’s an old story. Have you heard that there are some stories that are over seven thousand years old, and people still tell them, and they have been factually validated? True story. There is a story of a volcano colapsing in on itself that was passed down by a culture in North West North America that was found to be true. It makes sense, since humans would have used stories to pass down important information, so why wouldn’t we be able to remember a story and recount it; assuming our brains are not completely mush from only absorbing short form dopamine rich content.
I had recently posted that ALL MEDIA was making us lonely. A bit of a steep topic that is hard for many to digest. But I’ll try to focus on one part, stories. Because I think it deserves some deep consideration.
These days everyone gets their stories from social media or youtube. They are bite size and full of excitement. Some make me laugh, and others cry. I connect with these people through the screen and listen to their every word (assuming I don’t swipe away.) But they are strangers. They can’t see my eyes, and hear my laugh. They don’t even know I am listening besides seeing the viewer count increasing.
It is clear how not having face to face interactions is completely isolating. We hear about it all the time, so I won’t dwell on the obvious.
But what about the stories in books.. I absolutely love reading books. I love fiction and any long series with stories that are intertwined and go back to another story, the better. And even more, I love reading to my kids. Every night we will read together in bed either short stories or long. It is magical and quiet, and I feel like we really connect in these moments. They (“they”) even say that when people read together their brain waves start synchronizing. (it’s true, google it.) I am headed to the library shortly, and the kids and I will be looking for books that peak all of our interests.
But what if we are actually missing something by reading books. I know. SOUNDS INSANE to even propose this. But books are also a form of story telling, but on paper. And what if we are meant to be TELLING stories. What if we are outsourcing the part of our brain that is meant to tell stories. I bet if we told stories instead of reading them different parts of our brains would fire and we would engage and use that dead grey part at the back of our minds that may make us more creative.
Beyond using all of our brains for telling and retaining stories, there is also the magical connection that can occur. When we tell these stories, we can look into each others eyes and connect. We can listen for our audiences breath to hear when they are swept up in the story or watch their facial expressions to see when they are engaged in the tale. We can use our voices for pitch, tone, and cadence to captivate our audience and see how each of these techniques affects our audience.
Stories serve soooo many purposes. It is how to pass on culture and history, lessons from the past, and valuable information.
I recently heard that our modern society gets their culture from social media. Wow. that’s a little gross considering what’s on Tik Tok and Snap Chat. This is a new phenomenon that our culture would be outsourced to something virtual.
Personally, I would like it if my kids got their culture from their family because we tell each other stories that convey this culture. Like tales from their old great grandfather they never met. And how he lit that fire every morning, or how he skied with Jack Rabbit Johansen, and how he biked everywhere he went until he was 95, and he cooked stew from scratch every week, and he couldn’t really feel pain (there are many great stories with that one.) These short stories of my grandpa demonstrate what we admire in our someone and were worth recounting. His grit at a young age, his sense of adventure and athleticism, and his almost hilarious toughness. And then my children also feel connected to something greater. To their family, to people that came before them, that are part of their family lineage and more.
I was making up this bedtime story for my kids about kitties and fairies, and each night I would add on to the story. And honestly, the stories would get so elaborate that after a few days I would forget how many kitties there were or the names of all of them, but my son absolutely adored it. I sometimes feel to tired to be creative and do this, and then reading a book is an easy option. But I wonder if I didn’t give my energy away to social media throughout the day with glimpses to my phone, if I would have energy left to create stories for my kids. Just a thought.
So I am asking you to tell your kids stories, whether from your family’s history, your own history, your day, or even just make it up. We are story telling creatures and I think we all have an innate part of us that craves stories, which would also explain our addiction to all the short form content.
I think tonight I will tell a story about that time I had a cow…