Stories guide us...

What we believe about life, what we believe about the Earth, is all set into place by the stories we are told.
 
BEGINNING IN CHILDOOD AND PERSISTING THROUGHOUT OUR LIVES, stories guide us.  It is through a myriad of mediums, from fairy tales and myths to religious morality teachings and scientific assertions, that they speak to us in profound ways which then direct all modes of thinking and action, influencing our philosophy of life and view of the world. Narrative defined simply is an ordered account of connected events; however, the power it embodies lies substantially deeper.

“Very few people, I fear, change their lives as a result of reading contemporary academic philosophy. They are more likely to respond to example, to story.”

Bill McKibbon, environmentalist

The fundamental principles which enable narrative to influence the human psyche so effectively are the same which govern all natural living systems; and, just as the human psyche, so is Story alive.

Stories are dynamic systems which speak to the psyche holistically. Stories are relational by nature as they act to link content between speaker and receiver within a context via its inherent process. The process of story is one which requires the active participation of every individual involved. Not only are people connected through story but so does story foster inner psychological connection as well. C.G. Jung’s identified individuation, or “development of the Self”, is enabled by interactions with ancient, primal archetypes which are embedded deeply within the unconscious. These archetypes and symbols are seen in a variety of ways.

Whether stories work because the unconscious is responding to archetypal significance or because stories are known to communicate successfully with the parts of cognition typically sublimated (our emotions), which thus reside in the unconscious, is difficult to determine. As both psyche and symbol are acknowledged to be inherently ambiguous, most likely the answer lies somewhere in-between.