Sometimes I cannot help but wonder what happened to Stories.

Yes, stories of any shape, form or matter. Stories like Adam & Eve, Rapunzel, Helen of Troy, Thor and his thunder… and Stories about you, me and our lives.

I am inclined to think we started losing these Stories the moment we put television in our homes and later those wretched mobile devices into our children’s hands. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I work in IT so I cannot ever deny – factually – how much modern tech has improved our lives.

Still, I think sitting around the campfire and sharing each other’s stories is something we’re slowly losing, to the point that it’s becoming almost dangerous. I look at my nieces and nephews (mostly teenagers or getting there) with pity. I may be patronising them here, but I have no intention of apologising – least of all to their parents. I’ll in fact put a side-note here and say this to all parents out there: for the love of all that is good, whenever your children ask you about something try to tell it to them yourself. Narrate it to them, instead of letting them discover it by themselves on Google.

As much as I love Google and it helps me in both my work and personal life, I cannot stress enough the importance of Stories in today’s day and age. Stories have power. In my experience (and that is all I’m giving here), the Stories narrated to me by my parents – some were mythologies while others more factual – have kept me going in times when nothing else made sense. This is because the power of Stories lies in their Meaning.

Sometimes it’s a story you’ve heard, other times it is a story you’ve lived through yourself. Whatever it is, please tell it. There’s a hungry world to tell it to who’s eager to listen much more than it cares to admit.

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Photo by Kal Loftus on Unsplash