Take a Moment. Look at Your Story...
By Ben Franks
By Ben Franks
Generations and generations of the human species are dependent on stories, tales and fables. For thousands upon thousands of years we have not only been influenced and brought up upon stories, but our cultures have thrived upon them too, riding the backbone of narrative and moral meanings. It doesn’t matter whether we look at the story of two times two equalling four, the story of the apple that fell from the tree to simplify the understanding of gravity or the story of the birth of Christ or the teachings of Mohammed, every story gives us something incredible.
Every single piece of our life is grounded on the foundations of a good narrative. We each too have our own, unique stories, nurtured through the years of our lives. We take our own stories for granted; the experiences we gather. Every single mistake we make as human beings is indisputably priceless. Every single lesson we learn is undeniably golden. Every single person we love, like or hate is worth every penny of attention. What we fail to realise through the ups and downs of social norms and irregulars is our own tales, our untold wisdoms and our memories of the wonderful things we’ve seen and forgotten.
Stories are powerful, not only in the world of literature, but in the everyday situations we find ourselves in. One of the most common questions of our small talk is “what have you been up to?” and our response is to tell a story. We imagine the feelings, the characters (our friends or foes if so be it), the plot, the time and the experience we took for it. We compile these amazingly beautiful aspects into a voice of modesty as we tell, very simply so, of what it is we have experienced. The richness of these stories – the bits left untold – are the parts that craft us as human beings. The sound of a best friend’s laugh and your cheery response to smile, the cry of a new born baby sibling and your momentary understanding for incredibly young, new life or simply the taste of the mildly burnt toast you had that morning and your comical ‘note-to-self’ to turn the toaster down a notch.
You see, the ability to tell or write a tale through narrative is glorious, but it’s the things we take from the tales we endure every single day that matter. It is the ability to learn, thrive and live. It is the ability to have something no other species on the planet has. It is the ability to experience a story.
Do me a favour, take a moment out of your day today and think over the truly wondrous stories you’ve had recently. The smaller, more insignificant you believe it to be, the far better. Take a tiny moment and have a read.
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