Humans 101
A Way to Listen
Real Remedies for Revolutionary Times
There’s a poem of a book called The Other Way to Listen by my favorite author, Byrd Baylor. It sits on my shelf in the parable/teaching story/wisdom-for-every-age section, squished in next to Till We Have Faces, The Prophet, Tracy’s Tiger, and Daughters of Copper Woman. I’m thinking of it because of the similar title to this essay. But I realize, too, that if you were to just go and read it, you’d have everything I want for you.
I.
People sit down in these circles shy. Pushing hair behind ears, shifting uncomfortable in plastic chairs, looking down at the flower that all their feet make, pointing toward the center… chinos and wingtips, opaque stockings and day heels straight from work. Flat perfumes and deodorants and sweat hang in the still air of the room. If they see the flower too, they don’t say so.
I teach Storytelling because I like people. And helping people tell their stories mostly means helping them tell the truth, which is a nice thing to be part of. So I’ve been putting chairs in circles like this for a while. Mostly in writing and performance centers. But also in businesses, ad agencies, community centers, hospitals, public defenders’ offices, churches, tech conferences, graduate programs, executive ed trainings, and for activist groups that use storytelling to build coalitions and spark revolution.
I use storytelling to spark revolution, too. In addition to teaching and coaching, I use it to make a live storytelling show that’s been filling up a cozy 150-seat theater for almost 10 years. In it, eight or nine people of all ages, genders, jobs, identities and backgrounds step on a stage to tell true stories from their lives, and anyone who brings a potluck dish gets in free. The revolution part is that, instead of talking forever about The Wish to Come Together in These Divided Times, we just do. By having a welcoming public space to share without the usual adversarial and competitive stances, people come unguarded. We listen with interest and without the adrenaline of a fight. And in that way, we get closer to people who seem different from us. We learn, find common ground, become friends, and build unlikely (likely) alliances.
Of course, that story show isn’t happening now due to Covid-19, and neither are in-person storytelling classes. And to be honest, that’s okay with me because I was tired. I know I’m not supposed to say that. Seems like we’re all supposed to pretend that American life was just fine before a pandemic, massive unemployment, and civil uprising in response to one-too-many racist murders turned the world upside down. But none of these crises would be happening now if things had been just fine in the Before Times.
A few months ago, I set out to write this essay about storytelling. About how we can use it to hurt or help each other, and how I see it contributing to the mess we found ourselves in even before the pandemic. But the essay wouldn’t let me write past this point without talking about capitalism. I was frustrated by this, because I have no expertise in economic systems, and I feel mostly ridiculous talking about them. So I tried to find paths around that; exploring my brain’s terrain for alternative routes while the hydra-headed riddle-monster of capitalism quietly sat sentinel, waiting for me here, at the only passable pass. I kicked leaves around my neighborhood looking for a different way to write about public storytelling, thinking ‘I have no right, no reason, no responsibility to talk about economics…’ and ‘People will think I am stupid/ pretentious/foolish if I do.’
And then I remembered that, usually, when I feel this much resistance to talking about something that we all experience, it’s because I’ve been taught not to talk about it. So, I’m going to try to walk though this part instead of going around, and hope for your forgiveness for my lack of economic expertise.
I mention the different places I’ve taught Storytelling because hearing so many personal stories in such different settings over the last decade has had the unintended side-effect of giving me a view of people’s lives across a very broad economic spectrum. And in the decade leading up to the pandemic, I noticed a budding theme in people’s stories in all these places, which became more and more common. Increasingly, everywhere — from glass-walled skyscraper conference rooms to rec-center basements with flickering flourescent lights, I heard people speak about a type of sorrow that comes with witnessing the degradation and exploitation of the living world; caused by the same systems that keeps them too busy to do anything about it.
It took a while for me to recognize that theme, because it’s rather big and very sad. But over time its echo became familiar. I kept hearing people talk about it being hard to keep grinding at work while continent-sized forests burned, kids sat in cages at our borders, rising waters flooded their family’s city or farmland, or one more unarmed Black person was killed by white police. Listening to all these stories, it started to seem to me like people at all economic levels are effected by living inside a greed-based form of capitalism, that broadly and expertly exploits life in order to hoard wealth for a few. Even my clients at the very top of the economic ladder seemed to be grieving and grappling with something like an emotional tax that comes with working inside systems that cause this much suffering.
To be sure, in a storytelling class, I’m not fishing for anyone’s views on economics. In story workshops, we play with narrative games and exercises that let people turn lived-experience into engaging narrative. There are open-ended prompts like: “Tell us a story about your name!… about an embarrassing moment… a time you took a leap of faith… a time you were proud of someone… your first crush.” People share small and epic stories, funny and thrilling and profound. My focus is on helping people get easier with the elements of great storytelling, like narrative arc, sensory detail, emotional honesty, stakes and tension, audience rapport, humor and authentic presence.
But on my way out the door after any class or workshop, it was hard not to reflect on this theme that seemed to pop up everywhere, no matter what the prompts were. When a woman told a story about running for local office because her daughter died without money for insulin, and when a man told about organizing an expedition halfway around the world to clean up an island that his company polluted, and when someone told about losing their childhood home to fires caused by climate change, and about a father walking for hundreds of miles for a job picking grapes for $2.00 an hour… I noticed that all of these storeis are the same story. They, and a thousand others like them, are about attempting to be alive and well inside of a system that exploits life.
This is why I don’t think things were fine before the pandemic. And it’s why I don’t think a narcissistic president, a gridlocked government, or an uncontrolled virus are the cause of our problems. I think they are symptoms. Living systems can’t hold when they are exploited and stressed to the brink. Nature and people can’t be exploited and exhausted forever.
But like I said, this essay isn’t supposed to be about capitalism. It’s supposed to be about storytelling. This next part reckons with the ways that I believe storytelling is used on us — and by us — to serve a financial system that exploits life. I do believe that Story is a tool that was used to lead us to look away while the waters were rising. I believe that Story is what deactivated many of us, and kept many others busy fighting with each other, while a small few people ran away with the world’s wealth. I see still that happening now. So, it may be best for us to get our arms around it.
II.
An unspoken goal of live storytelling shows and classes during the times we could convene in person was to ease the pain of living inside stressed systems, by giving people a place to embrace community, and rejoice in commonality and connections. Live storytelling shows are raucous and joyful, and filled with more laughter and hugs and goodwill than are usual in public spaces. The act of sharing true personal stories not only improves people’s confidence and communication; it sparks empathy and makes peace across dividing lines. It helps people remember that other people’s lives are valuable and also beautiful, no matter how little we may have in common. So, many people who work with Story used these storytelling shows, classes, and workshops as little oases where people could come to be refreshed. Even if we didn’t talk about it in such mushy terms, we tried to use storytelling for good.
But storytelling is not a tool for good. It’s a neutral tool… like the Force: an ambient but precious resource that can be used by Jedi and Sith alike, to protect life, or to harm it. Story is an invisible element that has shaped human history as much as any on the periodic table. It has been used to sell cars, start wars, and explain the movement of the stars. Storytelling can be used to foster identity, allegiance, consumption, rebellion, migration, genocide, and reconciliation. Stories can align us with our highest purposes, and give us inspiration and grace, or they can make us ostracize each other, live in shame, and literally scare us to death. Story is a powerful tool. And so I think it’s worth becoming far more conscious of how we use it, AND how it is used on us.
Because the principles of great storytelling work the same way for everyone, you can hear a great story that serves to nourish and protect life, or, you can hear a great story that serves to manipulate and exploit life. And because it can be hard to tell the difference sometimes, I’ve developed a handy little litmus over the years that lets me tell the difference between one and the other. I’ll share that litmus here, just in case it makes anyone else more adept with the former and less vulnerable to the latter… more Jedi, less Sith.
The litmus doesn’t make the distinction between helpful and harmful stories along the lines of topic or viewpoint. Because I’ve seen too many people nourished by stories from people with differing points of view. It differentiates between stories that nourish life and stories that harm life along the lines of Source, Time, and Voice.
Stories that protect and nourish life have their Source in some abundance. Parables like those on my bookshelf hold shimmering and hard-won truths that people brought back from the breach to give others as gifts. We’ve likely all read books or seen films that changed our lives. And in these cases, I wager that the teller found something valuable by having engaged deeply with life, and then they generously shared it with you. In an overflow of awe, love, excitement or gratitude, they made a story as a container to pass their treasure on. They wrote Franny & Zooey, or The Chronology of Water or I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. At their best, religious and traditional stories, folklore and myths do the very same thing: they carry and convey useful knowledge, profound insight, and redeeming love across centuries.
Regardless of when they are made, stories that nourish life are usually located in a different Time. Nourishing stories provide a portal for us to enter a space that is reality-adjacent. They give us access to a distant or recent past, a fictional future, or parallel worlds (time that is “upon a time”). By entering these adjacent spaces, we get to benefit and learn from experiences beyond our own lived experiences. These nourishing stories give us more than we can find within our own timelines.
And finally, stories that nourish tend to be in the Voice of the first or third person. They are either spoken with the ownership of the “I” — as in, “I love this… I wanted this… I lost that… I tried this and failed and learned ___,” or they are spoken about a he, she or they: historical people or fictional characters who we can witness and relate to and learn from. Both first- and third-person carry the humble confidence of sharing experience, without presuming anything about the listener, projecting anything on them, or attempting to control them.
I also identify stories that do harm along these same three lines: Source, Time, and Voice.
Instead of having their Source in abundance, stories that harm life tend to have their source in lack. They are made by someone who wants something from you, and who is using a story as a tool to get it. People and organizations tell stories in order to get many things: your approval, your loyalty, your vote, your investment, forgiveness, compliance, and labor. We can probably all conjure images of advertisers, businesses, pundits, public figures, and elected officials using story to get things from us. And we can probably all recall the feeling of distrust that type of storytelling triggers. Most of us have friends and family members who tell stories in order to get: admiration, argument, agreement, sympathy. And most of us tell stories to get us things, too. Especially on social media, but also in personal interactions. We tell stories that are designed to get us attention, approval, respect, love, forgiveness, comfort, and congratulations.
To be sure, there is nothing wrong with wanting any of those things. It is deeply natural to want them all. It is also natural for a candidate to want my vote, for a leader to want team investment, and for a business to want customers. The problem comes when we use story to manipulate others into giving us those things we want — instead of plainly owning our desire and vision, and forthrightly asking for what we need. This is a problem precisely because of story’s power. Because storytelling is a superpower, we are obligated to use it to nourish life — not to extract from life. Fables the world over have fairly warned us of what happens when we use power (the wishes, wands, and wings we are given) for greedy purposes. In every single moral, mythical, spiritual, and religious tradition, the ethics of how we use power matter a whole lot.
As for the matter of Time, harmful stories are usually told about the present place and time. And here, I don’t mean fiction that is set in the present, or an article that shares info or opinion about a current situation. I mean applying narrative structure to the actual present-time experience of living. Telling a story about the present means telling ourselves, or telling others, the story of How Things Go. It means applying a narrative trajectory to actual real life, and then only being able to see the parts of life that fall inside that narrative. Present-time stories have titles like: Liberals Are Evil/Conservatives Are Idiots… You Have Problems and Our Product Will Solve Them… The World Is Doomed and Nothing Can Be Done… Only X Candidate Can Save Us… Our Family/Church/Company/Country Is the Best… The Other Guys Are Out to Get You… Men Always Leave… Racism Is Over… etc..
Applying narrative to present-time reality can comfort, motivate, and unite. Present-time stories can be negative or positive; optimistic or pessimistic. However they are angled, they limit our view. Because they are smaller than real life, which is more vast, complex, nuanced, astonishing, terrifying and beautiful than any story we can tell about it. Stories that are used to narrow our view of vast reality are deeply dangerous.
Finally, stories that do harm attempt to speak for others. They are are often spoken in the Voice of the second person — describing the experience of a “You” who is being addressed: “You want this… you feel this… we know you need this… we empathize with your situation.” Or, they speak in generalizations about other real people who the speaker cannot and should not speak for. (This is the first person plural or third person plural — describing the experience of a “We” or a “They”.) “Those people want this… they always do that… they hate you… they fear you… we are better than they are… we all know… around here, we always…” In any case, the speaker is trespassing, by claiming to speak for an experience that isn’t theirs.
So that’s the litmus. Source, Time and Voice. Before I leave the subject of ways that stories can be used to help or harm, I want to mention one other way that I see story being used to do damage. It doesn’t fit into the litmus just above, because it is a way that we can use any type of story to hurt ourselves — even the best, most nourishing stories.
When we binge story — series, films, podcasts, talk shows, news, social media, video games, virtual reality games — in our down time, we feed the delusion that we can alter our reality through narrative consumption. When we turn to story to distract ourselves from pain, boredom, or general feelings of discomfort, it can feel really good in the moment. And very harmless. Anyone who’s slipped into the stupor of binge-watching anything or loosing time to social media knows the relief of turning our brains off for a bit, and just passively receiving content. It doesn’t seem to hurt anything.
But the trouble is more long-term. Because story worlds aren’t meant for daily consumption. They are meant for the night: for the fire and the table, after a day well-lived and a life well-lived. Stories are supposed to be dessert. We are not supposed to feast on them all day long. Chronically living inside of games, films, series, YouTube & TikTok videos, even books, distracts us from the opportunities and responsiblities of real life. It lets us put off challenges we’d rather not face, and avoid improving our circumstances. A common side-effect of bingeing story is the feeling of being disconnected and ineffectual; an increasingly common delusion that the world is a show and we are spectators, helpless to change anything.
That feeling can make us less excited to get out of bed in the morning. In a story-addled state, we are more inclined to feel like we are helpless and useless watchers, and that our real-life participation doesn’t matter. This makes us passive, and far more susceptible to both conspiracy theories and propaganda. This illusion of ineffectuality is the floor where capitalism and storytelling come to dance together. When we are story-addled and apathetic, capitalism takes our longing for a more engaged, lively, satisfying life, and it sells it back to us as cars & trucks, beer & wine, political identities, Good Wars, meals delivered to our doors, seasonal decor, and tech tech tech. We are much more apt to buy what’s being sold to us when we feel ineffectual and disconnected. Which is handy, because consumer capitalism’s favorite story to tell us is the one where we are unhappy, but can buy back our happiness.
I mean that very literally. The story formula taught in many corporate storytelling workshops and advertising trainings, is not a secret. The classic sales story formula starts by “empathizing” with the customer’s pain and affirming their lack, and then it completes a neat little narrative loop by showing how a given product, idea, political party, or conflict, meets the customer’s need or solves their problem. That’s all. It is an easy narrative pattern to spot. But being already story-addled makes it harder for us to spot it, and much more likely to be swayed… to consume, combat, or comply, as much as anyone may want us to.
III.
Which brings me back to Storytelling class. Working in training centers that offer professional development, many of my students are sent, by companies or by feelings of necessity, to learn how to tell that story I just described: The Story That Sells. People come wanting to learn how to use story as a tool to obtain things: investment, customer loyalty, new clients, votes, brand recognition, etc. And that is… okay. People don’t come thinking that they are asking to learn a dark art. They just want a handy tool for their jobs.
But I don’t think they feel entirely comfortable with seeking to learn how to use story to manipulate. Which is why, I imagine, they sit quiet and uncomfortable in those circles on the first day of class, looking at their feet. Because we have all had story used to manipulate us, distract us, sell us, sedate us, and make us fight each other, quite enough by now. And I think that deep down, nobody wants to be a part of that cycle anymore. We would like to use our powers for good, instead, thank you.
It’d be more narratively interesting if I told you that I used to teach people The Story that Sells, but then had some big awakening where I realized I’d been working for the Empire all along. But that isn’t true. What is true is that I’m kind of a weirdo who had a couple of serious illnesses as a kid and young adult, and those confrontations with mortality gave me some direct acquaintance with the preciousness of life. They left me much more inclined to want to use any powers I have to protect life, rather than exploit it.
(I’ll mention that those early experiences also made me want to kick off the layers of narrative that I am quite capable of placing over my own life, too. Because placing a narrative frame on reality just gives me less of it. We are here for such a short time, and it seems better to listen and learn and adventure and know life deeply, than to hold still with all our narrative certanties about Who People Already Are, and How Things Already Go. When I can remember to do it, letting go of the stories I tell myself about life is usually painful. But whenever I’ve had the courage to do that, it’s led to a beautiful discovery. Which is that the world still holds me without any narrative effort on my part. If I quit narratively claiming the world for long enough, I can feel it claim me. And that makes for an awe and gratitude I wouldn’t trade for anything.)
I don’t always steer clear of harmful storytelling. I can sometimes still find myself using story to manipulate — myself or other people — because it’s easy, and all of us were raised to do it. And I’ll lose time in stories I addictively consume online, staring at a screen in all my downtime. When I am story-addled, I hate it… and am much more likely to believe the answer to all my problems is a pair of $90 bamboo fibre yoga pants. But it’s the tension and the journey back and forth between these states of grateful ease and hypnotized consumption that makes me teach. I know I can’t control how anyone uses their storytelling powers. But if I can help people remember to lay their stories down for long enough, they become much better storytellers naturally.
So in class, we move the chairs and play a bunch of games that let us laugh and find common ground and remember that we’re here without any narrative effort. And people stop looking at their feet and start meeting each other’s eyes and smiling and using words to say what they mean — instead of what they think they should say. And it is precisely this courageous accuracy that brings the house down at story slams and tech conferences and TED talks: people being themselves: not trying to manipulate others, but artfully telling the truth about what they love, what they know, and what they want.
After many years of watching people of all stripes learn and tell stories, I’ll tell you that there’s one quality I notice in the very best of them; the ones who bring down the house. Of course, first, these are people who tell stories that nourish life instead of harming it. These tellers want to leave listeners better than they found them. But perhaps the prerequisite for that, and the main thing that seems to determine a student’s ability to tell a truly fantastic story, is the way that person lives their life. Great storytellers are people who can stop telling their own stories about life for long enough to really listen.
Great storytellers are the ones who don’t hide inside narrative while real life is happening to them. Instead of bingeing videos about the ocean, they run into the waves. They turn off their devices and notice smells and colors and sounds while they move through the world, enough to remember those details later. They notice tiny urban rabbits, and seasonal changes, new graffiti. They notice the way a river in their town changes, and when birdsongs go away. They see strangers who need help or seem kind. They listen to others’ points of view without any wish to argue, or win them over. Without the constant internal narrative of This is Who I Am and This is What to Expect from Life, they pay attention to life as it actually unfolds and become curious. And they tell the best freakin’ stories.
When we stop constantly living inside stories, we may have to develop a stronger internal infrastructure that lets us bear pain and gratitude and heartbreak and hope and rage. Instead of flinching at feeling and grabbing our phones to numb it out, we learn to experience it, and let it motivate our actions. Instead of resigning ourselves to optimism, pessimism, or other spectator sports, we begin to engage; to stand up, speak out, and get involved. Living this way, life becomes bigger. We meet new heroes, have adventures, fall in love, ask questions and get answers. We tell the truth and meet the consequences. We experience triumph, failure and redemption, and we collect incredible stories along the way.
Everyone who teaches storytelling knows that as many shapes as it takes, in order for a story to be a story, there has to be transformation. And so, a very beautiful irony is that we can only tell excellent stories if we live without story for long enough to let life have us, and transform us.
Engaging and listening more deeply may even let us rise to the occasion of repairing our broken systems, to allow life to begin to recover and flourish again: in ourselves, in others, and in the natural world. If we were able to do that… well, it would make for some pretty epic stories to tell at the end of the day, and at the ends of our lives.
