My family is not one that engages in personal story. When something happens in my family, we instead inform each other about what has happened. Instead of giving each other the information in a story format, we present it as a short summary of what the person needs to know about the situation. In some ways, this was good, because if you are concerned with giving the person the information, it is easier to keep the information straight and not fall into the trap of lying.
When I was in my teens, I got to know a group of friends who embraced the idea of personal story. Now that I look back on it, it seems as if there were few times when a story was not being told, and by being told, I mean expounded on in a way that you imagine tribes used to tell oral histories thousands of years ago (Okay, not that much, but you get my point). Story-telling is an important part of that group of friends, and they seem to be keyed into the different aspects of reality that could be turned into a story.
Though some people I meet do enjoy telling stories, the majority of the people I run into do not. I think this is in large part due to the pace of life. If you are distracted by all the things you need to do, it is difficult to attend to the person you are actually with and form a friendship where in which you are close enough to embarrass yourself by telling a over-the-top story.
Some would argue their life isn’t interesting enough to tell stories about (I often think the same thing), but I don’t think telling stories is about your life being the most interesting thing in the world. Telling stories is about seeing the world in a different way. Instead of viewing your life as boring, you find the things that are interesting, that are funny. In the same way, an artist or author views the same world but is able to present that world in a way that grabs you. It is the same way a comedian can show how reality is filled with humor. A person who tells stories is sensitive to the possibility of the stories that can come from any given situation, and this person has practiced enough to be able to do it.
Though I do not hear many personal stories these days, the stories available through us through television, movies, and books are in such abundance, it is like living at the foot of a waterfall. We have more than we could ever watch in a lifetime, but we have very few stories of our own lives. Instead of focusing on the actual important things in our lives (our friends and family), it is very easy to saturate ourselves with these stories that have nothing to do with us. I think movies are good. I think books are good. I think Netflix is great and think that it has changed television forever, but fictional stories are not supposed to be our lives. Fictional stories are meant to enhance our lives, not replace them.
And this is why I am talking about personal story. Personal stories serve to direct our minds back to our own lives. Instead of seeing our lives as boring and the stories we watch, read, and play as fantastically interesting, we see that life is filled with humor, drama, excitement, and joy. I write to share my experiences of the world. When we take our experiences and turn them into stories, we are able to share our experiences with those who we actually care about. Though I love to write, I prefer this, because, in the end, it doesn’t matter how much a stranger likes me or what I’ve done.