storytelling

The more specific we are, the more visible we become. This is the literal definition of attractive - you’re attracting. You’re sending out a signal strong enough for the right people to notice and move toward.

How do you distract your executioner? How do you deescalate certain violence? How do you stop a narrative that will destroy you? By offering another narrative. And, in fact, not just offering one, but offering a multiplicity of stories. A thousand and one of them.

“Stories are our primary tools of learning and teaching, the repositories of our lore and legends. They bring order into our confusing world. Think about how many times a day you use stories to pass along data, insights, memories or common-sense advice.”

– Edward Miller, founder of Edward Elementary, illustrator and product designer

We rely on them for sense-making, meaning-making, and relationship-forging. We give them to each other. In a way, stories are gifts, and gifts are stories. In a network of stories, each thread is a symbiotic relationship. Between storyteller and audience, and between ourselves and each story. The existence of communal stories depends on all of us. ... See more

There is a responsibility to pass it on, a responsibility to practice appreciation, and a responsibility for reciprocity, which in turn continually strengthens our bonds. Wealth comes from sharing as opposed to accumulation, so the entire system is cyclical rather than linear.