Why Storytelling is Important
A story, something about just one story can change the world if it wishes to. The one thing that can impact the world on a level so high that it can flip one’s life in seconds. This story is something that changes the course of flowing water, giving it a new way, helping it find something truly opposite to what the person was hoping for. These stories live with us, they grow old with us, they shine through us and most importantly they live with us for the rest of our existence. A story is like a door, a door that leads into a world that is sometimes completely new, a world that reminds us of the good or the bad, and a world that ultimately reminds us who we are.
Stories from the start of time have been a way for people to share ideas and create conversations that maybe would have never even existed. The world is full of them, in every mind, on every street, in every little corner, and in every single part of the world, stories exist. They are not just the ones that are written but they are verbal too, they are not just present in books but they are the juice of life. They make one feel alive and at the moment. Well, my story is the same with stories, they do something to me that no otherworldly comfort could ever accomplish. A story to me is not about the perfect plot or the perfect climax and the best resolution, but it is about me feeling so connected to it on a level so deep that even I cannot comprehend. The world carries stories in every gush of wind, in every snowstorm, and in every particle of sand. It is as if they constitute the world in a way living beings can never achieve. A good story is about making someone feel something that they never thought they could feel. While the world we live in today has founded hundreds of ways to tell these stories, it marvels me to think of the other hundred ways stories can be portrayed.
They carry a certain intimacy with them that the reader, the listener, and the viewer cannot escape. A small change in the angle of the camera, a small cry led out by a character in a book, and the subtly of the reciter makes a story what it is. The brush stroke that changes everything, the beat or instrument that changes the tone of the song, these things don’t just make a story beautiful but these are the things that connect us to a story.
Why Stories Matter
This whole day, I felt as though something was missing and its true something is missing in life but the truth is that I just needed to know that what I was doing was good enough and that my actions could still change me for the better. And then, I watched one of the two movies that changed not only my outlook on life when I wanted them for the first time but that till this day keep inspiring me and relight the fire inside me. They remind me of all the feelings I experienced and sometimes they scare me because of the intimacy they bring. I fear them but not in a way that will keep me from watching them. I don’t want this to just be about film-making and films, but it is about something that makes it so powerful. It’s the story. Its story is like the main puzzle piece that brings together everything else present. Like the music, the colors, the angle, the place, they just wouldn’t work together if it weren’t for the story.
Maybe we would have never understood love if Shakespeare wouldn’t have written Romeo and Juliet. We would have never understood pain if it weren’t for The Brontë’s. Their dynamics don’t just tell us about love and pain, they make us feel it with them. We fall in love alongside the writer and we feel a part of us die with them. Stories have the power to make us feel. They bring to light things that we never would have otherwise known, they start conversations, relationships, they sometimes cause to break hearts, and sometimes they change us and the purpose of our existence.
Most of the knowledge we know, the morals we share, our values are introduced to us in the form of stories. It starts from the stories our parents read to us as kids or the stories we hear in school, they project these values and principles. It’s safe to say that everything we know today is just from one story to the other.
This world is hollow without the tales told in it, it is just fragments of broken glass if stories would have not held it together. A good storyteller knows this, and they know that what they have to say matters and that their voice matters no matter in whichever shape or form they portray it in.
The Statement is an Uncoiled magazine that focuses on sharing stories from around the world that make a statement to society. The magazine celebrates these stories through art and literature. If you are a storyteller, then please don’t be afraid to tell your story because you matter, and your story matters to someone out there. Click here to submit.
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