Humans think in stories, and we try to make sense of the world by telling stories.
Yuval Noah Harari
It seems that this is what we are all doing. Not specifically just now during the pandemic, but all the time. Context has just allowed us to to slow down and notice things a little more. As we listen for stories that either calm and/or enrage us, we are all changed and in a very real way. For me, I’m looking at this as a way to really examine the speed of life; and it would seem that I’m not alone.
From many of the TED Talks that I’ve listened to over the past few years as well as the observations that I made in the past. Stories are living things that gain their power by allowing us to put into context and create analogies between what we observe, what we’ve observed, and what we hope to experience. This storytelling can even be medicine (perhaps a reason why). As an aside I know this time isn’t easy for many people (check out Finding Your Campfire for thoughts on how to get through this and this BBC article or this CBC Spark story as to why video chats are hard), so if you are having trouble please reach out to someone you can trust.
Before I get going, this is a rebuilt version of my website. Doing some “finally cleaning” of my hosting account, my boora.ca DB accidentally got nuked. I was planning to get ride of the EDITing site and merge everything together, but just after I imported the old stuff, boom. So thanks to Internet Archive, I’m back after only a day down. Why put everything together? Because while the idea of keeping parts of one’s self siloed from other parts is perhaps good in some situations, I’m tired of that so this is all my thoughts. If someone want to know what’s in my head, this is everything (when I remember to write that is). I’m also dropping the idea that there has to be a straight line of thought between the idea of the post and storytelling, or education, or technology, or whatever. In the past I’d always try to write quick pointed blurbs ala grad school or Twitter. But this is my place so in line with the change in inspiration, there is also a change in pace. From first to last edit, this post will have taken days not minutes.
So now back to the opening quote and how stories might actually help. As we are now 50 some days into the COVID “Stay at home” 2020 experience, people are looking for ways to make sense of what is happening. Because many of us are not bouncing around in the “rat race” and we are now spending time at home and living at a more human speed, we are moving at a more human speed and reaching out to others to try to find novelty in the experiences of others. We are telling each others stories. New stories are being made and existing stories are being re-evaluated to try to frame what is happening. We look to the past with a sense of nostalgia to find comfort. This process reminds me of one of the main ideas from Lost Art of Scripture. Whereas scripture is commonly seen as a means of looking to the past to move forward in a manner that is “true”, the stories within scripture are actually ways to help those of us dealing with today not repeat the mistakes of yesterday once again. By providing guidance for recreating stories and rituals, these texts (in a perhaps imperfect form) help one commune with experiences from the past.
Scripture isn’t unique in this focus on ritual, stories of any form take a little of the past and mix it into the contemporary to help the reader appreciate the intent and experience of the author. Ritual is handy for creating novelty. We notice when it is broken, and make efforts to keep it from breaking. So in days that all feel and look the same, even little things can spark novelty. This is because ritual helps us define control (Happiness Lab S02E03). If you want proof of this, just take a look at what those silly superstitions that so many of us have. But take that same silliness and attach success at sport or some other endeavour to it, watch it become so much more (All Blacks Haka anyone?). As that perception of control increases those stories can grow and take on a life of their own. Before you think that it’s only sports and religion are big into ritual and the use of analogy, remember that science is also deep in the use of ritual and analogy (eg Analogies in science and science teaching and Analogy in Scientific Discovery: The Case of Johannes Kepler).
We are all sitting at this intersection of “before” and “now” creating a space where really interesting ideas can come into fruition (check out Epstein’s Range for more on this). Covering off the before, people are reading more during this time, and in addition to the accrual of the digital flotsam and jetsam of the social media, museums are archiving this experience (in Alberta and Holland). Will all this inform what comes next (BBC, WEF)? I hope that it will.
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