The Storytelling Animal

Summary

• Read fiction and watch it. It will make you more empathic and better able to navigate life’s dilemmas.

Don’t let moralists tell you that fiction degrades society’s moral fabric. On the contrary, even the pulpiest fare usually pulls us together around common values. Remember that we are, by nature, suckers for story. When emotionally absorbed in character and plot, we are easy to mold and mani pulate. Revel in the power of stories to change the world (think Uncle Tom’s Cabin), but guard against it, too (think The Birth of a Nation). Soccer practice and violin lessons are nice, but don’t schedule away your child’s time in Neverland—it is a vital part of healthy development. Allow yourself to daydream. Daydreams are our own little stories: they help us learn from the past and plan for the future. Recognize when your inner storyteller is locked in overdrive: b skeptical of conspiracy theories, your own blog posts, and self-exculpatory accounts of spats with spouses and coworkers.

 If you are a doubter, try to be more tolerant of the myths—national and religious—that help tie culture together. Or at the very least, try to be less celebratory of their demise.

The next time a critic says that the novel is dying from lack of novelty, just yawn. People don’t go to story land because they want something startlingly new; they go because they want the old comforts of the universal story grammar. Don’t despair for story’s future or turn curmudgeonly over the rise of video games or reality TV. The way we experience story will evolve, but as storytelling animals, we will no more give it up than start walking on all fours. Rejoice in the fantastic improbability of the twisting evolutionary path that made us creatures of story—that gave us all the gaudy, joyful dynamism of the stories we tell. And realize, most importantly, that understanding the power of storytelling—where it comes from and why it matters—can never diminish your experience of it. Go get lost in a novel. You’ll see.

Notes

• world awash with junk story could lead to something like a “mental diabetes epidemic.
• Stories have been a great boon to our species.

But are they becoming a weakness?

• But I believe that we are moving in that direction with a specific type of video game called a MMORPG, or massively multiplayer online role-playing game.
• we misremember the past in a way that allows us to maintain protagonist status in the stories of our own lives.
• stitches and pastes the scraps and fragments into a coherent and plausible re-creation of what might have occurred, taking his usual poetic license.
• This research is profoundly unsettling. If we can’t trust our memories about the big things in life—9/11, sexual abuse, being hospitalized after a dog attack—how can we trust it about the small things?
• This story that I tell about myself is only based on a true story. I am in large part a figment of my own yearning imagination.”
• People can be made to think differently about sex, race, class, gender, violence, ethics, and just about anything else based on a single short story or television episode.
• same mental bin, we mix information gleaned from both fiction and nonfiction.
• But a close look at the Philbrick passage shows that writers are merely drawing, not painting. Philbrick gives us expert line drawings with hints on filling them in.
• It seems plausible that our continuous immersion in fictional problem solving would improve our ability to deal with real problems. If this is so, fiction would do so by literally rewiring our brains.
• The simulator theory is based on research showing that “realistic rehearsal of any skill . . . leads to enhanced performanc
• psychologists still found that people who consumed a lot of fiction outperformed heavy nonfiction readers on tests of social ability.
• In short, the storytelling mind is a factory that churns out true stories when it can, but will manufacture lies when it can’t.
• Kuleshov effect
• Psychologists are finding that ordinary, mentally healthy people are strikingly prone to confabulate in everyday situations.
• Conspiracy theories originate and are largely circulated among the educated and middle class.
• The world’s priests and shamans knew what psychology would later confirm: if you want a message to burrow into a human mind, work it into a story
• We have religion because, by nature, we abhor explanatory vacuums
• Human groups that happened to possess a faith instinct so thoroughly dominated nonreligious competitors
• Story enculturates the youth. It defines the people. It tells us what is laudable and what is contemptible. It subtly and constantly encourages us to be decent instead of decadent.
• Research results have been consistent and robust: fiction does mold our minds. Story—whether delivered through films, books, or video games—teaches us facts about the world; influences our moral logic; and marks us with fears, hopes, and anxiety
• But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard. We are moved emotionally, and this seems to leave us defenseless.
• For these reasons, the psychologist Cordelia Fine calls the idea of self-knowledge a “farce” and an “agreeable fiction.”

 Self-aggrandizement starts early and with a vengeance.

• We are, in large part, our personal stories. And those stories are more truthy than true
• Character + Predicament + Attempted Extrication