Toxic Storytelling: When Reality Breaks

 

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Before I graduated from university, I had a variety of different jobs. I worked as a receptionist at a doctor's office. I worked as a drone at an insurance company where I sat at a desk and put people's personal information into their files. I did a stint at Kinko's, and I did summer touring theatre.

I worked at the insurance company between my Freshman and Sophomore years at Northwestern.

While I was there, I met a very nice young lady who was the closest person to my age. Let us call her Anne.

Anne was married to a man who beat the hell out of her.

This was the second person I'd heard of who was being beaten by her husband. My mom worked with this woman, let us call her Tammy, who was also being beaten, but I didn't know that young woman.

I'd asked my mother about why Tammy would stay with a man who hit her, and she did not have a good answer. She said Tammy always made excuses about it.

I believed that if I ever met someone who was being beaten, I could help them by explaining they shouldn't put up with it.

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Anne befriended me right away when I joined what was essentially a small office that was contracted out to do the grunt work of data input. (I think they send most of that kind of work to India these days) Anyway, the first day I was there she asked if I wanted to have lunch with her.

By the second day, she had a huge bruise on her arm. I asked her about it and she gave me some excuse. By the second week, I realized she couldn't hurt herself that much unless she lived in a house that was completely dark and the furniture was sentient and kept rearranging itself.

I spent a summer trying to understand how a woman stays with a man who is beating the hell out of her. Why? You know he's going to do it. You know there is nothing you can do to stop him. You know it's wrong.  He knows it's wrong. Why?

The answer was pretty straight up even though it was frustrating. It always had to do with stories.

What stories do you have to tell yourself to allow the beatings?

It was my fault.

He loves me.

He didn't mean for it to go so far.

He would never really hurt me.

I can't leave him.

I need him.

I was lucky to get someone like him.

He takes care of me.

Nobody else will ever love me.

He'll stop eventually.

If I get pregnant things will get better.

Toxic storytelling. 

You tell yourself whatever stories you need to tell yourself so that you don't have to face an uncomfortable or difficult reality. Once you internalize a toxic story, every incident must fit into that toxic soup in some kind of way for you to be okay. 

The longer you live in that skewed story, the harder it is to face that you might be wrong, or out of touch, or even the instrument of your own destruction.

At the time, in my nineteen-year-old innocence, I stood agape at such stupidity and reckless disregard for personal safety.

That was a long time ago.

I now understand it is not stupidity. It could be desperation, fear, or a vain attempt to control what is out of your control. 

Toxic Stories are often an attempt to make the world conform to what MUST be true if your situation is as it is. 

Toxic Stories are a stand-in for real answers. How can I feel this bad, angry, scared, or hurt UNLESS this is true?

I have since come to understand that Toxic Storytelling is at the root of a great many problems.

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Conspiracy theories are the fruit of Toxic Storytelling. 

When large groups of people gather and pool their Toxic Stories - the problem amplifies.

Their stories are antithetical to reality. They are aware of that, but:

If it weren't true, so many people wouldn't believe it. 

In fact, it is true! 

Everyone who doesn't believe it is just wrong. 

In fact, everyone knows it is true, and they are just evil, lying, or stupid if they don't admit it!

Some of the people telling the stories know they are not true. They are just telling the stories to manipulate others for their own gain. Unfortunately, sometimes the manipulators start believing their own stories...that's when things really get out of hand.

The remains of the library

I am an unapologetic bibliophile. I am still saddened and upset about the sacking and burning of the Library of Alexandria by a hateful mob.

Yesterday, in my own country, I watched years of Toxic Storytelling collide with reality.

The Toxic Story that exploded yesterday:

Their leader appeared before them and told them that they had every right to be angry at the corrupt carnival of communists and evildoers that were about to destroy our beloved country. He told them that he wanted them to stand against the crime that was happening down the street from where they gathered. He extolled them to go down the street and make sure that justice was done!

What wrong were they trying to make right? What crime were they trying to stop?

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The Liberal, Democrat, Socialist, Communist, Fascist, Evildoers in cahoots with George Soros, Dominion Voting Machines, China, and Iran have stolen our country by cheating in our last election! Brave Republicans are the only ones standing against this obvious crime! 

We must stop them from stealing this election!

We must stop them from counting these fraudulent votes!

We must force the horrible, weak, foolish, corrupt government to do the right thing and send the tabulations back to the states so that they can change the tabulations and make the person who actually won the fraudulent election the actual president as opposed to the person who the Liberal, Democrat, Socialist, Communist, Fascist, Evildoers in cahoots with George Soros, Dominion Voting Machines, China, and Iran say won the election! 

When they got to the capitol building, the symbol of everything that was wrong in their very Toxic Story, they were overcome with their righteous anger!

They were not considering how to solve a problem. How on earth do you begin to solve a problem as big as: The Liberal, Democrat, Socialist, Communist, Fascist, Evildoers in cahoots with George Soros, Dominion Voting Machines, China, and Iran -

Where do you even begin? What do you do about that? What is step one?

They didn't have anything but anger and a Toxic Story. 

It was the underpants gnomes kind of coup.

1. Mob the capitol

2. ?

3. Tr*mp is president forever!

Toxic Storytelling never creates anything productive or useful. Reality just won't let it.

Those people believed that somehow if they stopped the certification they could Constitutionally force states to resubmit their totals.

They are patriots!

They love America!

They have absolutely no idea how the government works and what rules it has to follow. 

That wasn't entirely their fault. Their leader doesn't know either. Still, he's the POTUS, so why would they doubt him?

Within hours the capitol was cleared, the Senate and House were back in session, and the electoral votes were certified.

Within hours, the new Toxic story began.

IT WAS A FALSE FLAG OPERATION BY ANTIFA!!!! OUR PEOPLE ARE PATRIOTS!!! THEY WOULD NEVER DO SUCH A THING! FAKE NEWS! FAKE NEWS!

I'm just glad there weren't many black folks there or I'm pretty sure they would have accused BLM of doing this. Well, it's early days.

Toxic Storytelling has always been part of humanity. There is nothing we can do to stop it. We can only counter it.

When the people in charge make no effort to challenge it, or worse yet, use it for their own ends, we get a mob at the capitol.

We have a great many Toxic Stories to unravel if we are going to go forward together in America.

I am happy to do my part:

Covid-19 is a real thing. It is very contagious and it can disable and kill people.

I never feel like it matters much that I keep saying that because the Toxic Stories about Covid-19 are pervasive, but I will keep at it.

Reality is rarely sexy. It is often scary. It is never easy.

Telling stories anchored in reality is the only way to face Toxic Storytelling, but it is a difficult lift. 

Toxic Stories are always much easier to deal with. You are never responsible for anything in your Toxic Stories unless your behavior makes you feel better.

That doesn't mean we throw up our hands and give up. It also doesn't mean we assume the people in the Toxic landscape will see the error of their ways. 

They might not be able to.

Toxic stories go deep. If they are then reinforced and exacerbated...you burn down the Great Library of Alexandria again, and again, and again...

Let's work to tell stories that help us face reality even when it's hard.

Today is a new day. Another chance to face reality.

My son took this pic when he visited Africa

Happy Detoxing -

Telling Stories and Literacy: The Things You Don't Usually Get To See

Photo Credit Jonathan Van Ark

I am an unrepentant bibliophile and logophile.

I love words and word games and reading. I could spend months sitting by a lake with a stack of books and little else and I would be in Heaven.

I can't imagine a life without books.

I know, however, that not everyone feels that way about literature.

Apparently, there are people who haven't read a book since college. There are other people who haven't ever read a book at all.

There are lots of reasons why people struggle to read, and those reasons are as varied as the people who have them.

If you are a literacy specialist working in an elementary school, you get to peek into those worlds. Today, because of a very specific set of circumstances, I got to peek into one.

I had three shows at a school today. This basically means I'm there for half a day. I don't do my usual run in, do a couple of sets, and then head out of the building.

The kids in the first couple of assemblies leave me and have time to go do a few other things before I am out the door.

Today was pretty perfect. I had K - 2, 3 - 5, and 6 & 7.

I got to do my traditional sets, and I let the middle school group decide if they wanted the family story I normally tell for the seventh grade or the gory scary set I tell for the sixth. Not surprisingly, I ended up telling Morgan and the Pot of Brains and The Boo Hag. They never pick the family story even if I promise them it is fun and they will love it.

I got to the school at 8:30am and I left at 1:15.

After my last set, I was chatting with the artist liaison. (the person on site who volunteers to babysit me! They make sure the space is set up properly, get my room temperature bottle of water - snacks sometimes - and ask me if I need anything else. They are wonderful. I wish I had one for everything, but alas, the second you leave the school you are once more on your own!)

We were laughing about something as we went down the hall towards the front office. I'd had a chance to see all the kids in the school, and they were shocked to see me walking through the halls like a normal person. They said the usual things:

"I loved that!"
"You are the best storyteller ever!"
"That was amazing."
"You are very good at telling stories."
"Thank you for telling us stories."

As we passed one of the closed doors, a teacher opened it, let a kid out and saw me.
She said, "I am so glad to see you! I have to tell you something."

A kid that she has been working with all year came to see her right after the assembly. The literacy specialist said that this girl has lots of struggles with literacy. She reads the words one at a time with a flat affect, and her comprehension is almost nonexistent.

She said, "I always tell the kids to read with expression, but they never do."

Today, when the girl got to her session, she read the sentence. "The. dog. was. angry." The specialist said, "After she read the sentence she looked at it for a second and she said, "No." she read it again, and this time she made it really dramatic. "The dog was angry!"

 She looked up at me and there was a huge smile on her face. She said, "I have to learn how to read this the right way so I can go home and read it to my parents!"

The specialist said the girl was so excited about the story that she worked on it until she had it so she could read it all the way through with inflection.

"You helped her make a connection between words and stories that I have been unable to get her to do all year. I have never seen her so excited about reading. I just wanted you to know that. You made a difference for her."

One of the bookcases in my kid's rec room

I rarely get that kind of immediate feedback about the work I do.
Normally, I just hope stories clicked with someone.

I walked out of that school today with so much joy. I was so proud of that kid. I don't know who she is. I might never meet her. She may never see me again, but if she keeps hearing the words with emphasis and images...reading could very well go from a struggle to a friend.

Don't ever doubt that what you do makes a difference just because you aren't always there to see it.

Happy Telling -

Q: When Is A Storyteller Not A Storyteller? A: When It Is Any-Fricking-Thing Else!

(There is some profanity in this clip.  If such things offend you, don't listen to it)

Storytelling is not just a nebulous term used for a handful of activities from marketing to making films.  Storytelling is a real thing!  Guess What?  Not everyone is a storyteller!

Writers tell stories, but many of them are not all that engaging in a presentation forum.  You know why?  They are writers, not storytellers. 

I am an unabashed bibliophile, but books are not storytellers.  They are books.  Lovely, intriguing, they make me happy, I own hundreds of them, but that doesn’t make them storytellers.

Marketers tell stories to sell products.  Are they storytellers?  No, they are marketing.   They are using stories to empty your pocket.   Image crafting is what they are doing.

Movie directors are definitely telling stories.  Are they storytellers?  No, they are making movies.  They film hundreds of different scenes in no particular order and then splice them together so that they have continuity.  They are creating visual art.  I love movies, but that does not make them storytellers.

I have lots of video footage online.  I am telling stories in many of those videos, and kids love them.   They share those videos with their friends.  They come up to me and quote parts of those videos.  They record themselves telling my stories, and occasionally they do those stories in storytelling competitions.  Hooray!  I’m glad they are watching me tell those stories, but when they are watching those videos, storytelling is not happening.  Why?  There is a live audience with no live teller.

In fact, here is a video of a young lady who won first prize in a storytelling competition doing me doing Red, Red Lips.  She is actually engaged in storytelling, but unless you were there live when she was doing it, you are watching a piece of story.  There is a difference.

What is storytelling?  Well, click here to see how it is defined by the National Storytelling Network.

This is what I say about it...

Storytelling has to do with the live presentation of a tale in front of an audience.  The storyteller and the audience are both changed by the experience, and they create communal space between them.  In order for true storytelling to be happening, it is necessary for both the audience and the storyteller to be in the same space at the same time so that the elements of the space all combine to create a piece of art in that moment.  Because of this, the story can change, grow, and adapt itself to new places, cultures and ideas through the oral tradition.  

Few things make me as blindingly furious as people who stick the term ‘storytelling’ in front of what they do for no particular reason other than marketing.

It happened for the first time in my career about twenty years ago.  There were a handful of storytellers working the schools in the Chicago area, and we were working steadily.  Then, one year I showed up at Center East and there were fifteen or twenty newly minted ‘storytellers’.  They were juggling ‘storytellers’, dance ‘storytellers’, mime ‘storytellers’, magician ‘storytellers’, and the list continued.

Almost five years later, everyone started dropping ‘storyteller’ from the name.  You know why?  People stopped hiring storytellers!  You know why?  Because they’d seen lots of not storytelling claiming to be storytelling, and they discovered that students didn’t sit well for it and it wasn’t engaging.

Schools began to say to me, “We don’t hire storytellers because we’ve had storytellers in the past and it has not been a good experience.”

I’ve also gotten, “I’ve seen storytelling.  What you’re doing isn’t storytelling.”

"No, you don't actually count as a storyteller.  You are more than a storyteller."  (Nonsense!  That's exactly what I am!)

“Storytellers can’t really hold an audience.”

“Storytelling is boring.”

Well, I do not have the leisure to drop ‘storytelling’ from my name, because I am actually a storyteller! (Insert scream of absolute frustration right here.)

In the last two years, Common Core has swept America.  Storytelling can be a very valuable tool in meeting many of the Common Core goals.  Guess what’s happening?

Saturday I was at the United Arts Showcase in Raleigh, NC and I noticed that the word ‘storyteller’ started sprouting up on everyone’s title.  We are all professional storytellers again.

So, in my never to be humble, often out of bounds, nobody asked for it anyway opinion, who is a storyteller? 

Easy.

Unapologetic Juggler Alfonso Guerra  This is how to own your artform!

Storytellers are storytellers.  People who are actually working that art form, trying to understand it, get beneath it, and uphold the thousands of years of storytelling tradition that supports it.

Tell stories.  I’m all for telling stories.  Tell them in video, dance, music, as you juggle, and any other way you want to, but please, just own your own art form, and leave storytelling out of it!

If you are not a storyteller...YOU ARE NOT A STORYTELLER!

Rant Out!