The First Stories
For most of our human history, storytelling was oral. Myths were spoken or sung by diverse storytellers who could select and modulate their narrative to best suit a given audience, emphasizing some aspects and ignoring others.
The Oral Tale
Claudia added
“Then just imagine this Second Awakening being the canvas he used as the background for his Power of the Myth theory. Spoken language emerged during the time of the early shamans, and great myths were told around the campfire. For the first time, early humans became self-aware and while still considering themselves a part of nature they understood
... See moreJeffery A. Martin • The Fourth Awakening
Humans are a story-telling species. The stories we tell ourselves and each other guide how we live in and relate to the world. They are the social technology through which we make sense of the world and give meaning to our lived experiences. Like the mycelium that runs below our feet, stories are everywhere, threading and reshaping our reality, eve... See more
Niels Devisscher • Belonging and Butterflies in Times of Breakdown
Stuart Evans and added
Instead of building a network from human-to-human chains alone—as the Neanderthals, for example, did—stories provided Homo sapiens with a new type of chain: human-to-story chains. In order to cooperate, Sapiens no longer had to know each other personally; they just had to know the same story.
Yuval Noah Harari • Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI
Stories, he says, are a:
“...form of culture that remains when nations, languages and faiths have long since died. There is an almost uncanny persistence and durability in the tale which cannot be accounted for in the present state of knowledge.
“...form of culture that remains when nations, languages and faiths have long since died. There is an almost uncanny persistence and durability in the tale which cannot be accounted for in the present state of knowledge.
Sally Mallam • The Evolution of Storytelling
Claudia added
They told themselves stories to explain the mysteries of their own existence. But they also told them because humans loved listening to them. That’s why it is not always easy to figure out exactly what they thought they were doing when they were doing it.
Richard Holloway • Stories We Tell Ourselves: Making Meaning in a Meaningless Universe
An even older spatial memory technique used by Indigenous populations living in Australia (i.e., Aboriginal peoples living in Australia) involves creating a story in an actual physical space, using elements in the environment as part of the narrative. Among Aboriginal populations living in Australia, these stories tend to remarkably remain consiste... See more
Introduction to Psychology & Neuroscience – Simple Book Publishing
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the wisest of storytellers, through imagery and the richness of their languages and through the multileveled structure of their stories, provide a beacon for those open to a new understanding of humanity’s evolutionary process and who might hope to see themselves as part of that transformation.
Sally Mallam • The Science of Storytelling
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