{"id":164,"date":"2018-08-13T14:30:09","date_gmt":"2018-08-13T14:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/purestory.co\/?p=164"},"modified":"2021-12-20T15:08:55","modified_gmt":"2021-12-20T15:08:55","slug":"why-i-love-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/purestory.co\/index.php\/2018\/08\/13\/why-i-love-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Do you know what a story really is?"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”padding-10-percent” column_padding_position=”left-right” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]\n

You love stories, I love stories, we all love stories, but do you know what they really are?<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s get it straight, I don\u2019t love them because they are exciting, entertaining, enlightening or moving\u200a\u2014\u200aalthough of course they can be all these things. Rather I love them as a technology. I love what they can do to the human brain, what they have done to the human brain since, well since it became the human brain.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s go back to the beginning, the very beginning.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about language, this is the true fire of the gods. The Promethean flame that illuminated our animal world.[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][image_with_animation image_url=”165″ alignment=”center” animation=”Fade In” img_link_target=”_blank” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%” img_link=”http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2789\/4387489763_6fbbd42824_o.jpg”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”padding-10-percent” column_padding_position=”left-right” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]\n

Language is our first and most powerful technology, more brilliant than fire, more versatile than the wheel, it allowed us to literally give voice to our imagination. It allowed us to bring back messages from the astral realm of dream and vision and share them, with stories.<\/p>\n

Stories then allowed us to to design and construct a shared consciousness and in turn to perceive a shared, definable, uniform reality. And let\u2019s be clear how we perceive reality IS reality. Like a great man once said –<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”\u201cWhat is real? How do you define real? \u2026If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain.\u201d” google_fonts=”font_family:Arvo%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”padding-10-percent” column_padding_position=”left-right” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]\n

Yes words from the Wachowskis 1999 masterpiece The Matrix. Is it any less true because it\u2019s a fiction, a story?<\/p>\n

Okay if Morpheus isn\u2019t going to convince you I\u2019ll hand you over to economist Keith Chen in his paper \u2018The Effect of Language on Economic Behaviour\u2019<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_custom_heading text=”\u201cLanguages differ widely in the ways they encode time. I test the hypothesis that languages that grammatically associate the future and the present, foster future-oriented behaviour. \u2026 I find that speakers of such languages: save more, retire with more wealth, smoke, less, practice safer sex, and are less obese\u201d” google_fonts=”font_family:Arvo%3Aregular%2Citalic%2C700%2C700italic|font_style:400%20italic%3A400%3Aitalic”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]\n

In short Countries with weaker future tenses\u200a\u2014\u200a\u201cI go to the bank\u201d, (German), rather than \u201cI will go to the bank\u201d (English), have better ability to look after their money. 30% better to be precise.
\nSource<\/a><\/p>\n

So then can we agree that at least language defines our reality, surely we can agree on that?<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s take that further\u200a\u2014\u200aIf Language is a system for defining reality, then stories are tools for affecting reality. If language is the OS then stories are the apps designed to run on and make changes to this operating system\u200a\u2014\u200aaka perceived reality. Unfortunately if the Bible and the Quran are still top of the download list that means we\u2019re running some pretty outdated software.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s talk about belief. A story is an idea, a belief, condensed and packaged in language. Designed to interface with our own belief systems. Stories are data packets, bundles of emotional information that unfold in our consciousness. Effecting our mind state and in turn how we perceive reality. Information is the matrix (association intended) that our reality runs on and it\u2019s not a passive field. It intersects with physical reality in a meaningful way.<\/p>\n

Stories actively effect this information field. They are agents of information. They can appear complex and encoded but they don\u2019t have to be. Symbols are stories\u200a\u2014\u200athey are tools\u200a\u2014\u200athat function as blueprints of intent. The Swoosh is a story and somehow it\u2019s a \u2018better\u2019 story than 3 stripes. As the Golden arches is a better story than the ever changing Burger King\u2026 Whateveritis. Coke is a better story than Pepsi. You get the idea. These brands are all stories\u200a\u2014\u200aideas condensed into form that accrue meaning, that stand for something in our personal and collective belief system (BS for short).<\/p>\n[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][image_with_animation image_url=”168″ alignment=”center” animation=”Fade In” img_link_target=”_blank” box_shadow=”none” max_width=”100%” img_link=”http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2789\/4387489763_6fbbd42824_o.jpg”][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1\/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]And if this sounds dangerously like magic, then that;s because it is, language is pure magic (why do you think they call them SPELLS) it\u2019s a virus, the code to change minds and in turn change the world. And surely in this world of BrexiTrump, climtastrophe and Alt-right flesh eating viruses, we desperately need a new story?<\/p>\n

And that\u2019s really why I love them, stories I mean, because, I\u2019d go as far as to say that now stories are the only thing left that can save the world.<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s try to tell a new story, it can be words on a screen, words on a wall, it can be fully immersive interactive experience or 140 characters, it can be a hashtag, a meme, a gif. A song, a play. I don\u2019t care just make it. Condense and define your imagination as action and put it out into the world. It\u2019s the greatest gift we\u2019ve got. It\u2019s our oldest and our newest technology, let\u2019s use them together to change the world.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s make a pure story.<\/p>\n

Are you sitting comfortably?<\/p>\n

Then let\u2019s begin\u2026[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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