Our story begins just like any other story. Our story begins today, the day all stories are created, when the history of our thoughts are loosely reconstructed into a chronological development that climaxes into our great experience. And we, the collective consisting of the reader and myself, all partake in its development. I write the information vaguely connected to actual experience, and the reader reads skimmingly across the vast plains of such information in search of, well, a good story. Since I know this, I try to incorporate many treasure tales into the lines of text that can be discovered by the reader, thus proving his worth as a reader and mine as a writer. All of this is merely to explain how it is “our” story and not just a made up fiction, which is it, but who cares.
Hence, no story is ever told again. Each time it is reconstructed with a secret encoder (the storyteller) and a unique decoder (the listener or reader, well, at least the reader, since most listeners become their own storytellers and audience after a short time). Which brings me to my first point: there are few audiences for storytellers in the world of voice. The best stories are spoken in places one can read a book, ponder some silent thought, or anywhere else with a pint and friends. Few listen. Few understand. Few acknowledge their understanding by saying something other than “I understand.” Unless following an order, nobody should ever say “I understand” to any speaker. “I understand” should be a demonstration of understanding, not a statement of it. Only the speaker can declare if the listener understands. For example, the listener can simply repeat back to the speaker what they have heard. Is this not the easiest demonstration of understanding? If someone is explaining some problem they are having to me and follow their explanation with the question “Do you understand?” I simply repeat back to them their explanation of their problem. “I'm upset because you suggested I was an idiot, understand?” “So, you're upset that I suggested you were an idiot?” “Yes.” And then they continue. Once I am declared as understanding, the speaker feels automatically able to continue their story because the value of the story has been reflected by the listener.
It is amazing how unimportant people feel if they are not listened to appropriately. Just like learning a new language, a new speaker must be learned, decoded, placed in context, and received with translated acknowledgment. There is little difference between a listener who only acknowledges understanding by their declaration of it and a foreigner who receives instructions with a silent smile and a nod. I cannot recall the amount of times I have spoken to individuals who couldn't even realize the language I was speaking, much less the words, and far less the meaning. How did we become so self-absorbed that we have run out of stories to tell about each other? When did we stop learning to communicate to other humans? Perhaps school has taught us a standard of communication that must be adopted in order to be useful. Perhaps some people who went to school are just jackasses. Perhaps jackasses need a lesson.
What if we shocked the world by displacing everyone into another culture? How would you act if you didn't recognize a face, a landmark, an article of clothing, or even a syllable? At what point does the level of desperation to connect with other humans break the self-absorbed jackasses in all of us? Must we reach to the degree of shell-shocked displacement to disrupt our aging self-reflection and reproductive autobiographies?
So try, just try, to tell a story about someone else. Tell one you've heard. Tell one you've heard told. Tell a story you heard was told to a guy who once listened to a comedian talk about an email forward he received from a friend about a group of people in another country learning the tales of a remote culture. It's entertaining, fun, easy to listen to, and best of all, it's not just about you. Who knows, if you're not talking about yourself, people might find you easier to listen to.
