Story Telling Default Settings

Story telling default setting

There is a topic that ignites passion like no other in a person. This is what they talk best about. This is an arena in which they swim effortlessly like a shark in water. Until that topic is hit upon you might find them dull and lacking in charisma.

Everyone has an individual core purpose, a driving force that causes them to have an affinity for some stories.  Over the years they load themselves with these topics and soon start to ‘leak’ at times they least expect.  Start a conversation with people and if you hang around for long enough, the conversation drifts slowly to their preferred area of interest. It could be anything from their bad luck to their family wealth.

I first thought about people and their stories during a sermon by Joel Osteen of the Lakewood Church during which he said, ‘I heard about a man..’ and went on to tell a story to aid the understanding of his sermon.  Subsequently I noticed that in every sermon he says things like ‘I was reading about someone’, ‘heard about someone’ or ‘talking to someone in the church’ who had a story to tell. I began to wonder way he was always the one who heard about all these stories. (Na only you waka come phenomenon) Was it that he hears an equal number of good and bad stories but only re tells the good ones? On looking around, I found out that friends and family all have their specialist areas of storytelling which seemed to attract more of such stories to them.  Everyone is a story teller after all. Is that not what a Curriculum Vitae is all about?

Fanny Crosby, speaking about herself in the Hymn Blessed Assurance puts it best

This is my story; this is my song,
praising my Saviour all the day long;

I was shocked to find out that the lady who wrote so many important Christian hymns was blind. The strength of her tenacity is undeniable seeing that she wrote about 8,000 hymns and from what can be gathered from biographical sources she had just one story to tell; which she did through her music.

Everybody has something they do all day long and this activity becomes their story.  Napoleon Hill says, Sow an act and reap a habit, sow a habit and reap a character, and sow a character and reap a destiny.  No matter what people might say they wish for or want, it is the daily acts performed consistently that their future success depends upon.

Can one change one’s story?

I think (and I may be wrong) that the chances of changing an individual story are close to zero. Not because it is impossible but just because people do not like change. What happened in childhood is taken as an excuse for how we are, (till death do us part from excuses). Take someone who did not apply himself well in school and left with no qualifications. Such an individual begins to tell people that he had little education so as to be excused from doing academically demanding work. That story becomes a habit and would be re-told for sixty years or more. Such a person could have educated himself in fifteen years rather than complain or lament the lack of an education for sixty years. The same goes for people who say that their family or culture prevents them from doing things. These are people could be in their twenties and would have known their families for only twenty something years. Surely they could easily learn a new culture over the next twenty years. Is childhood learning set in stone?

Perhaps the story could change if the story teller embraces a two-fold change. First he changes his appetite and learns to dine in the libraries of new information. Secondly he stops telling the old stories and start his tentative steps in the journey of a new language. It almost like the change I underwent from being an A-level student to being a medical student. The language of anatomy was as tough to grasp as was indeed the actual technical information. We talked about it all day long, dived deep into the aqua of knowledge (as one Nigerian politician is fond of saying)cracked jokes about it (the smallest girl in the class was cruelly called  Flexor digiti minimi brevis after one of the smallest muscles in the hand) and dreamt about it, till the exams were passed.  Transformational change is painful but possible.

The Voice

Stories are told in a voice that tends to remain constant. The voice may break at puberty but it still retains its core characteristics throughout life. Is nature sending out a secret message by giving us just one voice in a life time? Could it be that we have similarly just one story to tell? Just one main mission for which we are born? Even in writing, novelists have a ‘voice’. It rarely changes upon reaching maturity. Sometimes out of necessity, one could adopt a different voice through mimicry but it never lasts. The true voice and story must be found before one can really find peace in life.

Old friends

Meeting up with old friends can be very interesting. Incidents long forgotten are brought up which usually go on to prove that people have changed little over the years. They might have acquired more money and weight while losing hair in the process but they still drift to the topics they loved way back in the boys’ dormitory. They may have lacked the courage to pursue their dreams in a given sphere of life but even in their bitter complaining, they drift to that sphere and complain about something there. The successful entrepreneur tells stories about all the mutual friends with successful businesses while the dissatisfied failed business man rolls out a list of ex class mates who are either struggling or have died.

Shut up for change

Forgetting the things behind I press on (Philippians 3:13). Just don’t talk or think about the nasty past or associate with anyone inclined to do so. Keep the mouth shut and focus on the new so that the future will bring a new story and a sweet glory.

Babawilly

Dr Wilson Orhiunu

23-8-2014