“We are, as a species, addicted to story. Even when the body goes to sleep, the mind stays up all night, telling itself stories.”
— "The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human" by Johnathan Gottschall
Stories are one of the most natural and primal things we as a species have. Long before books, we orally told stories. Before language, they told stories physically in dance or by pictures. There are an endless amount of ways someone can tell a story, and endless amounts of stories to be told. To me, all of these stories are important. Stories teach. Whether we are listening to music, looking at a painting, watching a play or watching a movie, we often revert back to young children learning lessons from seemingly silly fairy tales.
That’s why fairy tales are the best. They entertain us enough to let our guards down and learn without even knowing it. They allow us to think. They allow us to be silly. The stories that I want to tell are not particularly fairy tales, but those that allow us to grow without quite realizing it at first. As a theater student, I have read countless plays where they do just that. I want to try to tell stories that allow us to criticize ourselves in order to evolve. I want to tell something that changes someone, even if it is just for a second. The world has so many moving pieces and parts, like a Rubik’s cube. It is able to be completely change by just one twist or turn.
We, as people, have this incredible ability to all have completely different minds with completely different stories. Every single person’s life is made up entirely different than someone else’s allowing them to be an entirely different story. We are stories. At times, it is hard to remember this. For some, it is hard to remember that that guy accidentally in one of your pictures has an entire life of his own. For others, it is hard to stop thinking that way. Why was he there? Where is he going? What is he looking at? What is his name? What is his story?
Just as they say, there isn't a person in this whole world you wouldn't love if you could read their story. So, what's yours?
