Working with the local learning in retirement organization has opened my eyes to the presence of stories in our lives. I meet many people who say they have no stories. Once they find out I am thinking of stories that could be used to talk to a group of older, retired citizens, they amend their position to stating they have no INTERESTING stories in their lives or backgrounds. This almost always turns out to be only partly true.
It can help to picture what an expert marketer or advertiser or lawyer can do with a story from our lives. Did you ever have a pet? How did you get that animal? Given to you by someone who loved you? Taken by you or your family to save it from death or abandonment? Did you have a bike or a skateboard or a car that lifted you to a new sort of person? Have you ever been on a date? Was it wonderful? Maybe it was very unpleasant.
Especially if you are 50 or older, you have lived enough hours, been with enough people, tried enough roles and duties that a bit of research will reveal or remind you of that time that _______________ That time can be looked at in so many ways. It really taught you a lesson. It makes such a horrible/lovely memory that you got valuable knowledge.
A book group is meeting this week to discuss "The Storytelling Animal" by Jonathan Gottschall. It is true that most experiences make some sort of a story. Our editing abilities can lengthen and shorten, enliven or gloss over, emphasize or hide aspects of a story that make it more memorable, more valuable. Just today, the article "Homo Narrativus" by Peter Sheridan Dodds found its way into the Pocket service of the Firefox browser. Sheridan works in the University of Vermont's Computational Story Lab where they try to "quantify stories of all kinds."
