Monday, 20 November 2006

• Currently Reading The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel By Diane Setterfield see related

  STORY TIME

  I don’t take pictures for two reasons¹:  1. I’m ugly.  2. It’s evidence.  I suppose I could understand one’s desire to take pictures.  I suppose people take photographs with the intention to physically capture a specific moment so that they could remember that moment forever.  Browsing through old pictures, I suppose, could be fun, because every picture, I suppose, is worth a thousand words.  And a thousand words, I suppose, could tell a story.  I suppose, pictures tell stories, and that’s what people really want when they take pictures.  I suppose. 

   

  But pictures tell stupid stories.  I mean, how much of a story can a picture tell when it’s just a bunch of people huddled together intentionally smiling at a big bright light?  It’s kinda silly if you ask me.  Pictures are just false evidence of a false reality.  They don’t tell stories.  Pictures are LAME.

   

  It’s debatable whether or not I would be more inclined to take pictures if I had been blessed with, at least, “average” looks, but one thing that is not debatable is that I like to tell stories.  I realized the importance of storytelling during my years as an undergraduate at UCSD.  I used to study at the on-campus coffee house called Grove Café, which was the haven for UCSD’s wannabe-intellectual population (I was there for the muffins).  I befriended another coffee house patron named Delilah, and whenever we ran into each other at the Grove we would always get into discussions about various things such as science, religion, and politics².  We would also tell stories about our lives, too.  Delilah told me stories about her childhood, her family, her friends, and her relationships.  There was nothing very remarkable about her stories.  In fact, she had a very boring life.  But, whenever she told her stories she kept my undivided attention.  (I suppose it doesn’t hurt, too, when you have long, raven-black hair, deep, beautiful eyes, and are drop-dead gorgeous.)  Her life was boring but her stories were not because she was a great storyteller³.  And ever since then I’ve been fascinated by storytelling.

   

  The great thing about storytelling is that you can make people believe whatever you want them to believe, and you can make people feel whatever you want them to feel.  I can make you feel angry when I start talking about how optometrists nowadays are a bunch of losers who are slaves to pharmaceutical companies and organized medicine.  I can make you feel happy when I say that on the eighth day God created Kate Beckinsale and Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.  I can make you feel smart when I use words like copacetic, charlatan, and clandestine.  The ability to choose words to evoke a desired feeling is an art, and since I’m not an artist, that’s probably why I’m so fascinated by it.  I’ve always said that if I could have any super power, I would want to have a silver tongue so I could win any argument. 

   

  But perhaps the most important thing about storytelling is that it tells us who we are.  Whether it’s a story from your parents about a time many decades ago, or a story from your friends about something that happened last week, the story is going to tell you something about where you came from.  Storytelling is, of course, influenced and controlled by the storyteller, and sometimes the facts of the story will be bent, stretched, or denied.  But history has taught us that, no matter what, the facts will be obscured anyways, but the storyteller always has something to say.  The goal is to tell your own stories.  Everyone has a story because everyone has a soul.  Everyone wants to know who they are, and everyone wants to know who the other person is.  And nothing is more telling than a story.

   

  A picture is worth a thousand words, but a thousand words are not worth a picture.  Stories are dynamic, and that’s why they last forever.  Tell a story and someone will listen, whether you have raven-black hair or not.

   

   

  1.  This is not entirely true.  I take pictures when I'm shit-faced drunk.

  2.  And sex!  (I thought not to include that part in the main text because I thought it would discredit any credibility I had with this post.)

  3.  I once told her she had a boring life, and she pointed out that I was going into optometry.

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