I've been thinking a lot about how people used to tell stories and how that changed. How all of us—everyone—did it as part of daily life, as if it were the most normal thing imaginable.
It's just how people communicated with each other.
While stories obviously still exist, they feel incredibly different now. I can't tell you the last time I heard someone tell a story or write something that sounded anything close to how my grandfather would've told it. He always sounded like he was setting up a punchline.
"How's it going, Norm?" someone would ask. To which he'd reply "Can't complain... wouldn't do much good anyway"
*ba dum tss*
That would be his icebreaker, but then he'd follow it up with more substance. He'd tell you he ran into someone recently and then set the scene. He'd describe the person, maybe use a few hand gestures. Then he'd get to the part where he'd interacted with this guy, and he'd take you through the action.
"now this fella, he turns to me and says...
"and I finally get a good look at him...
"so then he goes..."
He was a remarkable storyteller and I simply can't do him justice. But that type of story—ones with back-n-forth dialogue and an energy that moves—it was just how everyone communicated. Or so it seemed. Thinking back, it's easy to write it off as a generational thing. Especially since my sample here is my grandfather and his friends. But I'm convinced that's just because they were the product of a world that operated a certain way.
I don't feel like this is really the same world anymore. Not like the one they lived in, at least. And that kind of bums me out (with regard to storytelling, anyway).
Without phones or social media, I remember how people talked while they moved through their day. And not through a set of AirPods, but to the people IRL walking past them. Just chit-chatting about everyday type things with total strangers. They’d tell each other stories. And all those stories, it seems, were about something other than the hottest new tips for how to be a functioning person. No, they’d tell you about something from their life or about the people in it.
But now, everywhere I look, it feels like it's only people, profiles, and pages trying to tell me and everyone else what to do.
Um…
I do not want gurus and spam??
That's why I stay away from Instagram.
I do not want them, day or night.
Not in my ears or in my sight.
I do not want gurus and spam...
It’s... it's become completely ridiculous, right? Is it just me? Like, honestly, I just want to hear stories from people about someone they ran into throughout the day. I want to read more things that aren't self-promotion poorly disguised as hyperbolic life-lessons. Real stories about real people. Maybe a punchline or two? Some scenery even?
But I can’t find much of that at all. Sometimes, it makes me feel quite alone.
And so then I says to no one, I says "bahhh; fine. I’ll write my own”
When's the last time you heard a story from someone while going about your day that didn't have any ulterior motive other than light-hearted entertainment or whimsy?
onward.
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