Humans are storytellers. We just are. We tell stories about our past, our families, our history. We tell stories about people we’ve met and people we haven’t met. We tell stories about people who never existed at all. We tell stories about everything.
Most importantly, we tell stories about our present and, woven within them, stories about our future. These stories define who we are, where we are going, and all the possibilities of an unknown future.
One of the reasons the Transition movement is so compelling is just that – it tells a story. Part of the Transition process focuses on developing an alternate social narrative about who we are and how we fit in the world. But like so many of our present day science fiction narratives about the future, the Transition story tends to be couched in an acknowledgement or, often, an expectation of impending collapse.
I can understand that, because, well… it feels like that sometimes. But if we can’t even imagine a better story, how will we build it? We aren’t confined by our wildest dreams, but won’t we get further if we actually think that we can?
I think that in order pull off this sustainability thing, we are going to need to figure out how our own personal stories relate to a new social narrative. One in which our needs are not fueled by the continued destruction of natural systems and exploitation of our fellow human beings. I don’t think that narrative will be shaped by one person or one country, or even one movement. Rather, it will be the organic collective of our personal stories.
This means that we need to take a very close look at how are personal stories are serving us, our lives, the people we love, and the world as a whole. So often we allow our stories to define us. How much better could we make things by consciously rewriting our stories to create the life (and the world) that we want?
Sure, it would be much easier if someone would give us all the answers. If some “green messiah” appeared and led us all to a brighter future or we discovered some amazing technological solution that fixed all our problems overnight. But I also love the fact that our new collective story, whatever it is, will belong to each of us and all of us together. And hopefully we can figure out how to make our story a hopeful one, and use it to build a bright, beautiful future.
This post was prompted by Chris Brogan, the fact that I love getting free books, and my current obsession with the construction of new cultural paradigms.
[...] in a Thousand Years in an online giveaway. In order to be eligible for the giveaway, I wrote this post about the function of personal story within cultural narrative. I’m so glad that I did. I [...]