Photo credit to Jason Wong

We are very complicated and interesting creatures. We are not the strongest nor are we the fastest animals on this planet, but by working together we managed to come out on top of literally every other animal on this planet.

Let's take a moment to celebrate that. That's fucking awesome. We managed to actually get something done. Woohoo.

Okay, enough of this celebration, back to the post.

One of the uniquely human things is our ability to tell stories to our fellow tribemates. We all love a good story that makes us really think about ourselves and life.

There are three main reasons I like stories from a society perspective.

Reason #1 - Perspectives.

Stories give us a perspective like no other. A good story that lets us really get invested in a character lets us see the world from a new perspective because we can understand what someone else is going through.

Stories make us more human.

However, not all stories need to have characters that are fictional. We also share stories from our own lives. These stories play along with the human way of survival - working together. To work together, we need to know what makes our peers tick, so we can mutually benefit each other, not do harm. When someone shares a story from their life, we can explore what could happen if we did the same without having to live through the whole experience ourselves. This is a wonderful tool to move forward without having to do and experience everything for ourselves.

If someone really messed up in their life once and learned something new, we can share that. By sharing our mistakes and successes, we can help others succeed. We can help the people close to us so that they may help us.

We love stories.

I'd even go as far as to say that we are biologically wired to love stories. Some of the greatest talks and speeches always include stories to capture our attention. Stories usually have some information for us that is told in the most wonderful way - through experiences.

Reason #2 - Exploration. Limitless imagination.

Photo credit to Mike Erskine

Continuing on from experiences, stories allow us to explore the world we aren't physically able to. We can live thousands of lives through books, films and stories told by the campfire. We can sail the sea, feel what it's like to be lightyears away on another planet or know what's going on in a magical world.

Born too late to explore the world or too early to explore the galaxy?
How about just in time to do both, just not in person.

The stories that we share shape the way we live our lives and what we consider right and wrong. By picking up a book, we can let our imagination run wild and create deep emotional connections with the characters we learn more about. By living through all these stories, we can then apply what we learned to real life.

So, be a pirate! Just not in real life, that's illegal.

Reason #3 - Preserve the past - save the future.

Photo credit to Daniel von Appen

We as humans make a lot of mistakes and these mistakes leave stories behind. By picking up these stories and sharing them, we can help prevent the future from walking the same path to error.
However, stories don't only come from mistakes, we have good stories from the past that helped us shape the world. Stories can share what it was like to walk the streets of old towns, so we can recapture that feeling and bring it to life.

This recapturing is happening with the vintage aesthetic look. Barbershops that look like the ones you would see in films are popping up all over the world, coffee shops are becoming very cosy. We're going back to our roots - the human touch to things.
We are learning that machines can't completely replace humans when we need a connection. We want the feeling that a human being has made something, it just makes whatever we are doing so much more powerful.

It's about the story, not the object.

Conclusion

We care about why and how not the what.

The basis to a good, humbling story is the why and how not what actually happened. The what is the cherry on top of the layered cake that is a story.

Stories are an incredibly important part of our world and are unique to us humans. We should cherish that.

Call to Action

How has a great story changed you as a person? What important life lesson have you learned and would love to tell the tale of? I'm eagerly waiting for the responses from you lovely people, so get those feathers and inkpots out!