Why Storytelling?

I've been wondering how come I've written so little about Storytelling, considering it is probably the invisible thread that connects my career and, more importantly, that I believe it to be humanity's pre-installed operating system.

But it is not that I haven't written about Storytelling. I have. Heaps. I have just not done much formal writing.

I am doing some serious e-decluttering and I am coming across a lot of stuff I have written for different purposes. Even a few journal entries I started at a moment when I thought that I might start typing instead of filling notebooks, but that's beside the point.

For someone who has not written much about storytelling, I have written enough. The favourite bit of what I've come across so far is this, which I wrote in an abstract a couple of years ago:


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Storytelling is the most natural way of provoking thought and reflection, communicating ideas, and sharing emotions and knowledge with one another. There is reason to believe that people have told stories to one another, for as long as humanity has had speech.   Sharing stories helps enhance virtues such as empathy and compassion, heals emotional wounds, fosters human connection, provokes thought and reflection, promotes global mindedness, makes us care for others and our environment. Research shows that children who know their family history have stronger self-esteem than those who don’t.   Storytelling also complements the school curriculum by improving literacy and communication skills. It is also beneficial for language learning/acquisition and a convenient resource for differentiated education. It is to be hoped that as they recognize its  invaluable benefits, schools and parents will engage more in storytelling and reclaim the essence of human relationships. (April 28, 2016)

That's pretty much my creed.