Tag: Stories

The Story About Stories!

 

Everyone loves a good story. Stories are a communal currency of humanity quoted Tahir Shah in Arabian Nights. And without wanting to sound far fetched, storytelling is our obligation to the next generation. Passing on the baton, if you may.

There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you. After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.
Forget about being perfect because it is boring, predictable and inauthentic. Be imperfect, authentic and relatable. Way too many people don’t share their valuable lessons because of fear of not being good enough. You are good enough! Share your story and touch people’s hearts and heads.
If you care about it, it’s probably a story. We remember a famous sporting win, not because we were there, but because the story resonates with us. We vote for candidates because of their stories, and shop at stores that have a story that strikes a chord with us.
Ideas are aplenty, but ideas without action are regrets. The last time we took action on an idea, extended our hand to a friend, went beyond self-doubt to launch a new project- all these happened because the story worked.
And it’s possible to tell a better story. Just get started.
It’s on us. We need to learn how to hear stories, figure out which ones are resonating, and do the difficult and urgent work to make our stories more effective.
Because if we care about it, it’s worth doing better.
Storytelling is metaphorically speaking in our DNA! We are storytellers. We are called Homo Sapiens, but we could also have been called Homo Narratus. Those who could tell great stories around the campfire would increase the odds of the group surviving. The parents who could tell great stories about lessons on the savanna, how to hunt and other essential skills would increase the chances of their offspring later becoming parents themselves- Asger Lindholdt
Don’t be trapped into following the Hollywood Paradigm of Storytelling viz- Set-Up, Conflict, Resolution. Thats an established practice in the movie business. Good stories will always captivate audiences, whatever the medium.Therefore its power is limitless.
In 6,000 years of storytelling, people have gone from depicting hunting on cave walls to depicting Shakespeare on Facebook walls. – Joe Sabia
Are you telling your story? Because, remember, your story matters!
ENDS

Placebo, take a bow!

 

To begin with a look at the definition of the noun Placebo:
– a medicine or procedure prescribed for the psychological benefit to the patient rather than for any physiological effect
– a substance that has no therapeutic effect, used as a control in testing new drugs
– a measure designed merely to humour or placate someone. A placebo is a prompt for our subconscious to do the hard work of healing our body, increasing our satisfaction or maximizing our performance
I am enamored by the last one as it ultimately serves us better.
Several years ago, on my first ever overseas trip, I carried back a pain balm for my grandmother who often suffered from severe ankle pains. It took exactly 90 odd seconds between my giving her the balm, her applying it and her claiming instant relief. The Doctor’s prognosis of her excess weight and varicose veins be damned.
In a make believe world, placebo does the hard part of well..making us believe. It’s manifestation of a slightly different lineage, with some tangibles thrown in.
Status roles are defined by the culture we live and function in. ‘People like us do things like this‘. Wine collectors, sneaker aficionados, pimple creams, energy drinks or herbal remedies all surf the placebo wave. As it creates maximum impact amongst the purveyors targeted.
We offer sub optimal credit to the stories in our lives and we seem to have persuaded ourselves that our brains don’t matter much. But, increasingly, we have increasing evidence to the contrary.
Stories are the salve, the balm, the therapy and our brains, powerful as they may be, might or might not be under our conscious control.
If you find a better domicile for our stories to reside(other than inside our heads), let me know. We can recalibrate the GPS. Till such time, let us live with our placebos.
If you want some inspiration on how placebos work, take a look at this link https://www.instagram.com/reel/Csorz4iPdrq/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=loading
The above is a link from a post shared by One Minute Bass (@oneminutebass) 
ENDS

Sooner than Sooner or Later than Later ?

Crystal ball gazing can be a good hobby. And a better one would be actually seeing the future. A present forward to a scenario that will come about in a few years time. Ohh..ptimism !

 

William Pen once famously quoted ” Time is what we want most but what we use worst.”

 

What is history but a fable agreed upon? And the future happens slowly and then all of a sudden. History is a recent concept, the future even more so.

 

An impressionist painting of the future may not look rosy, but at least we are having them. With a possibility of doing something to change(for the better) what is on the anvil. On the flip side, the great strides in medicine, technology, energy production etc are sure salve for our nerves.

 

Of course, future generations will be mature enough to think even further ahead.

 

 

Fables and storytelling started off with ” once upon a time…”. The past was as much a mystery as was history. ” When I grow up, I want to be…” was the indoctrination that most of us received as kids. The fact that very rarely do our past and future align is a different matter altogether.

 

But, once you have made up your mind to create, construct, collaborate, contribute, to make art or do work that impacts, then how you look at time becomes sacrosanct. Time is either your friend or your opponent. Time is either something you use as a tool or something that works against you.

 

It is often used as an adage – time flies – that may not be exactly true, but it does move along. And a lot depends on whether you are using it as a tail wind or a head wind.

 

Small drops..make an ocean. Drip by drip by drip…show up, ship out. I started blogging ten years ago with no idea that I would be doing it a decade later. But here I am. And hoping to continue, learning, unlearning and striving to get better.

 

I am taking the liberty of directing you to what I feel would be a relevant read from the blog at ISD Global on ” 20% time ” – the most valuable time you can spend.

 

ENDS

Being an employee of our own myth!

We are all frauds! Forgive the blatant articulation.

 

To quote Wikipedia ” The master race (German: Herrenrasse) is a pseudoscientific concept in Nazi ideology in which the putative “Aryan race” is deemed the pinnacle of human racial hierarchy. Members were referred to as “Herrenmenschen” (“master humans”).

 

Creating is hard for every last one of us– including for the ones from the allegedly superior Aryan race.

 

If you think creating is hard, try grave digging. Or coal mining. Infinitely harder. Do you think miners stand around all day thinking and talking about how hard it is to mine for coal? Certainly not. They just go ahead and do it ie dig!

 

Throughout life, you collect data points or dots. And you probably don’t have a clue how these dots will connect in the future. As Steve Jobs said, you can only connect these dots looking backward. But, you can only collect them going forward.

 

In our daily lives, too many of us favor the comfort of conviction over the discomfort of doubt. The result is that our beliefs get brittle long before our bones.

 

Without the mistakes we make, the decisions we regret and the experiences that didn’t live up to our expectations, we would be very short on material for our creative work.  These things are all just ingredients for your soup, material for making meaning and making art.

 

The creative process, just like the creative life, isn’t linear.  We don’t know how each of our life experiences will impact us down the road. With each step forward, the view changes, the landscape shifts and the horizon offers a different dimension. The most insignificant of our experiences and life’s little skirmishes at the moment can serve as the most informative (and even inspiring) ones in our future.

 

Our creativity is not something that someone can give us, gift us or take away. It’s something thats always within us.  Whether it’s the degrees we earn or the jobs we hate, every experience offers us seeds to plant for the stories we tell.

 

Life doesn’t pause or stop to make room for our precious creating time. So, if you are running your own life’s employment exchange, show up and ship out!

 

ENDS