Narrative as Knowledge

“The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves determine the quality of the selves we imagine we are. The stories we tell about others determine the quality of our relationships with them.” Rami Shapiro in Hasidic Tales: Annotated and Explained

Let’s start with a premise: humans see the world through a veil of stories. Stories interconnect with one another to weave a screen through which we filter experience, make judgments, and define ourselves. They contain beliefs, assumptions, values, hopes, fears, desires, and add up to a network of understanding that we use to order reality. In short, stories shape our identities.

These stories explain chaotic jumbles of experience, give context to unfamiliar events, and connect dots that otherwise seem meaningless. Stories order the universe, comfort us, and reassure us. They are also hard to change. A belief will persist long after evidence that proves it wrong has been presented. For example, when asked where the weight of a log originates, graduates of a botany program at MIT often said “the ground” or “water.” In reality they studied how wood resulted from photosynthesis, that cellulose was constructed, or “created,” by energy from the sun. But they “knew,” had a story, or believed, that wood came from water and soil. That made more sense, fit better with early experience and reasoning. The story lived on, in spite of evidence to the contrary. The “real reasons” wood is so heavy came from the stories, not things studied in class.

In the desert, as another example, we act as if water is an inexhaustible resource, even though we know it is not. Our story that technology will support whatever we develop keeps us building beyond what the desert can bear. Most of those who migrated to the desert came from water-rich environments, like the East and Midwest. They “believed” that water will always flow. It’s just a matter of making it happen. Other civilizations have made the same mistake and now speak to us only from ruins.

Stories are a kind of spontaneous human response to things we can’t understand. They are with us and will be always. The job of a reflective writer is to become aware of both personal and social stories, to identify them, to name them, and to evaluate them. Some stories have worn out their usefulness and need to be revised. By becoming aware of them and then reframing them, we can change stories to better fit the problems and challenges we confront.

If we can accept the premise that stories form some of the base of who we think we are, then it follows they are worth examining.

Saying this is much easier than doing it. For one, the stories we live by are buried deep in the mind. We don’t even know they are there. We see only fleeting glimpses of them, the tips of giant ice bergs. For another, we identify with them, and will fight to keep them. They are “right” and we cling to them like life itself. 

Just because we use stories to organize and explain the mysteries of experience does not mean that all stories serve us. Sam Keen writes in his preface to Your Mythic Journey that

"The organizing myth of any culture functions in ways that may be either creative or destructive, healthful or pathological. By providing a world picture and a set of stories that explain why things are as they are, it creates consensus, sanctifies the social order, and gives the individual an authorized map of the path of life. A myth creates the plot-line that organizes the diverse experiences of a person or a community into a single story.

But in the same measure that myth gives us security and identity, it also creates selective blindness, narrowness, and rigidity because it is intrinsically conservative. It encourages us to follow the faith of our fathers, to hold to the time-honored truths, to imitate the way of the heroes, to repeat the formulas and rituals in exactly the same way they were done in the good old days. As long as no radical change is necessary for survival, the status quo remains sacred, the myth and ritual are unquestioned, and the patterns of life, like the seasons of the year, repeat themselves." [xii-xiii]

But there are benefits to doing the work of making our life stories more conscious . The examined life, as Socrates said, is the one worth living. Examining, however is only the first step; the real work comes from evaluating and then revising the stories to better address changing circumstances. If you “author” your own stories, you are not living the stories of others, or the stories you inherited, but are crafting a narrative for the needs of the here and now.

 

The best stories are told with vivid detail by a trustworthy, believable narrator. They also focus around some idea, or statement. They add up to something because the details, the focus, and the voice of the narrator all work together to move readers or audiences. 

As storytellers, we select details and arrange them for effect. We want out listeners to engage with the telling, to be amused, appalled, sympathetic, or to take our side. In other words, we all compose by selecting evidence, putting a spin on “facts,” and adopting a persona (or voice) to better communicate. 

We tell ourselves stories about who we are as writers, what we can do, (or can’t do), how writing works, what the best ways are to cut corners or to “get by,” or how important writing is to the rest of our lives. 

Improving one’s writing implies making one’s writing stories visible, of looking at them for the myths that are at work, and that form the basis for making decisions about how to compose, revise, research, and edit. If the “stories” about writing are keeping anyone from learning or succeeding as a writer, those stories need to be revised, to be replaced with stories that allow for growth and improvement as a writer. 

I used to believe, for example, that writing depended almost solely on talent. You either had it or you didn’t. This meant that writing was reserved for a privileged few that became Ernest Hemingways or Joan Didions, and that the rest of us were supposed to sit down, shut up, and enjoy the show. 

Long years of experience teaching and writing have shown me that innate talent is wonderful and important, but so is hard work, focus, and time at the desk or in front of the monitor. I have learned that, for me, writing is about showing up and asking the right questions at the right time, of working processes of brainstorming, focusing, organizing, developing, and then tweaking for style, word choice, and tone. My story that writing is about focused effort has resulted in articles, essays, and books being written and published that would not have seen the light of day if I have adhered to the old story that writing was for the talented few. 

All of our stories carry consequences and potential. They can keep our hands tied, lead us into war, or launch us in the direction of our dreams. It’s all about what we need to get where we want to go. The stories we live have to answer questions raised by a changing, dynamic, ongoing, and mysterious puzzle called life.

* The "featherless, storytelling animal" phrase was coined by Sander McNabb.