We Tell Stories

We tell stories because we have something to say; we tell stories because through stories, we can make sense of the world in a way that statistics and charts and graphs and all the algorithms that have ever been made can’t; we tell stories to remember; we tell stories to lie; we tell stories to preserve the past; we tell stories to change the past; we tell stories because what we have to say is so damn important, right?; we tell stories because we have nothing else to say; we tell stories to our friends, our neighbors, ourselves, our split personalities, to the press to cover up a gross blunder of national security, to our significant other about the horrible day we had at the office/the job site/class/the commute/the grocery store/our trip across town to listen to our cranky elderly relative/our drug deal that went horribly wrong and now we need to clean this place up and get the hell out of here before the cops show up; we tell stories to our pets or our houseplants because no one else will listen, and to strangers because even if they judge you, they don't actually know you; we tell stories to commiserate or to boast, to cheer up or to one-up; we tell stories that no one believes; we stretch the truth and take out inconvenient little facts until the story becomes an entity of its own, divorced from reality by our own exaggerations; we tell stories because in stories, anything can happen, we tell stories because sometimes, the truth is just too ugly, we tell stories because humans have always told stories, we tell stories because we all think, secretly, that we’re the most important person in the room, regardless of the room; we tell stories to preserve the past, we tell stories to change the past; we tell stories to live lives we can’t lead; and we tell stories because all you’re really going to get out of life, in the end, is a good story to tell.

Amen.