Tall tales - Letting the story breathe.

Way before "stories = letters forming words", they would be carried from the mouths of our elders to the eager ears of a younger generation of listeners. Tales of fire and creation - of seas, lakes and mountains. The wonderful animations around the family tree of all things starry and celestial.

These ancient tales were not fixed things, back then. There were no documented points of reference, or scrolls unfurled in proclamation. The stories moved from firelight to shadow, almost as living forms. I would wager that no two tellings were ever the same and I am damn sure that no-one expected them to be. It would seem that any element of "truth" lived in the feeling of belonging, not via verbatim accuracy, but through meaning and celebration of ancient and sacred community.

Perhaps for many branches of our ancestry, these village lores and legends were used with the same regualrity as many of the other tools in the local shed. They were brought out and used with purpose. As benevolent reassurances relating to the guidance of the Gods - in times of famine or conflict - or as marvels of natures wonders in periods of abundance. They were the grounding seeds of cultural tradition and frameworks, though which the listeners remembered who they were. Stories of old, passed on. Wisdom and warning; hope and humour.

The invention of language, symbols, and eventually written script, although a major leap forward in the civilsation of mankind, was a massive game changer for both stories and their tellers. The hand-me-down myths and fables, would now become fixed in place and time. What had once lived in breath and memory, was now preserved on parchment and eventually typeset. This was a siesmic shift. Now that stories had started to stay still, interpreation began to funnel and narrow. The printed word and mass distribution of texts, implied both agreement and authority. Subtly, the story stopped moving with the listener, and began to ask the audience to move closer - towards the "generally agreed upon version".

A couple of weeks ago, Vanessa and I were dining with dear friends and one of them began to tell a story. A benign remembrance that had no apparent instructive or emotional content. About 2% into the tale, his partner decided to interrupt with a "factual correction" around the timeline. "No, it was 2005 not 2003" and then quickly followed with a geographical one "No....it was in Antwerp, not Amsterdam.." These interrupty ammendments were neither helpful nor of any import whatsoever. It started to break the branches of the story into twigs. The agressive editing didn't let up and was underscored by ungenerous additives around "Why can't you remember it properly"? and "You're not telling it right"... to the point where our story guy just gave up on his tale, like a smacked dog dropping a chewed slipper. It was a bit sad, to be honest. Awkward, silent and uncomfortable.

When did we decide that stories need policing? When did we start to treat harmless recollections with checks and balances? Things to be corrected and verified.. error-free.

This is not a "one-off" incident. It happens a LOT in the lives of you and me both. I know for sure, we have all either been both good and bad - "memory cop".

And so we interrupt each other. Constantly. We have moved from sharing space to claiming ground. From listening to managing. From connection to correction...Wtf..? What is this really signalling?

I was clearly quite bothered by this recent experience at the home of our two pals - enough to do some digging. When someone repeatedly mugs the narrator at fact-point, what is going on under the surface?

It appears, from my amateur sleuthing, that correction often signals anxiety - and we get increasingly nervous and nauseated if we are also in the story that is being told - if we were there as well. Perhaps the inane corrections are a quiet attempt to ensure we are properly represented, or some such rubbish. A control thing. In older traditions, no fireside whipper-snapper would dare to interrupt with a “That’s not how it happened, why are you telling it that way?” Mainly because stories did not belong to individuals - they belonged to the tribal collective. A story could hold more than one truth at a time.

We now live in a time where stories are no longer a way to make sense of the stuff that we don't fully understand or have little knowldge around. Narratives move stock markets, sway elections, and even sometimes, fracture families. “Fake news” has entered our everyday vocabulary, and with it, a heightened vigilance around what is truth, relative to source.

I totally get the heightened vigilance. In a landscape where misinformation travels faster than a speeding bullet, many of us have learned to scan stories not for resonance, but for risk. We listen defensively. We interrupt as a matter of righteous course. We crticise from our comfy armchairs. We correct in real time, as though every news item or piece of gossip carries the potential to beguile our fragile and sensitive self. The problem appears to be, that this stance of knee-jerk know-it-all, has become the default setting aroundhow we choose to operate.

So why the anxiety? What are we worried about? I was just thinking about stand-up comics who tell stories about their husbands, wives or kids - the audience is looking for the laugh. The punchline - not an opportunity to say "No she didn't...she never said that...I am not sure if that is entirely true..." When did we get so self-righteous? Deciding that "your version threatens mine" rather than "your way of telling it adds nicely to the story".

When we correct and edit and stop just listening, we lose the emotional texture of connection. The vulnerability of the story teller is shot to pieces. They will think more than twice about standing on that stage again, of that you can be sure. What a totally unnecessary courage killer is that..

Anyway, I think we might choose to think around how we can all give back the permission for stories told, to remain a bit more human. Fallible and expressive, shaped by feeling or humour or interpretation, not just by fact.

So what about the good old BBC or CNN, ABC and Al Jazeera? Are they only loosely bound by factual reportage? An annoying speed bump in my thought process...Ugghh..

Ok let's just build a fence in the middle of the field and separate the people we rely on for news, and our social interlocutors. Make it easy for me.. Our journalists are governed by fact. They must be. If only because journalism, at its finest, is a discipline - not a feeling. It is bound by verifiable sources, accountability and most importantly - consequence. When journalists either set out to get it wrong, or are fed a baited hook on a crooked line, the damage isn’t personal or poetic; it is societal. Accuracy, effing matters.

But this is not the kind of storytelling my little essay here is questioning. Maybe if we didn't use the word "story" for everything - news stories, brand stories, personal journey stories...Would that make it easier on us?

In conclusion, if there even is one to be made, the next time a story unfolds before you, whether it does so at a dinner table, debate or in documentary format, maybe we could choose to agree around a pause before we shout from the cheap seats. A truce declared. Let's ask ourselves "What is being offered here?" What wants to be heard?" and most of all.. "What will be lost, if I choose to interrupt?"

Usually, the kindest act of compassion, and in celebration of the empathy of respect, is not to set the story stright, but to let it live. Whatever the way they tell it.