Something Savory -- Stories That Lie

Do you promise to tell the truth, the whole truth,

and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

       http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/04/why-storytellers-lie/255490/

Maura Kelly is an author and commentator. She has written for the New York Times, Slate, Salon, The Guardian, and in this case The Atlantic. Here she writes about a new book called The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human, in which Jonathan Gotschall discusses why we humans have such a strong interest in stories, and argues that we're all storytellers — and all liars too, even if most of us don't realize it, even if most of us are lying primarily to ourselves!

Having toyed for several days with an original piece about memory and catharsis, I was really fascinated by (and learned some things from) this essay. Looking forward to reading the book.
-- Butch Ekstrom


          "Many of our memories are records of our own stories, not of events that actually
          took place."

          "When we tell (or write) stories about ourselves, they also serve another important
          (arguably higher) function: They help us to believe our lives are meaningful. The
          storytelling mind — the human mind, in other words — "is allergic to uncertainty,    
          randomness, and coincidence," Gottschall writes. It doesn't like to believe life is
          accidental; it wants to believe everything happens for a reason. Stories allow us to
          impose order on the chaos. And we all concoct stories, Gotschall notes: even those
          of us who have never commanded the attention of a room full of people while tell-
          ing a wild tale. 'Social psychologists point out that when we meet a friend, our con-
          versation mostly consists of an exchange of gossipy stories," he writes. "And every
          night, we reconvene with our loved ones . . . to share the small comedies and
          tragedies of our day."


This is Butch writing again. If someone invented a new pill called, say, Amygdalop which gave you the power to forget a painful or embarrassing memory or, perhaps, all memories (to give you a fresh start at life of sorts), would you be interested in taking that pill?

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