Good Storytellers Are Happier in Life and in Love

I completely agree with your assessment of the problem.

don't feed the trolls

If you really want to change things for the better, you should stop asking questions that have no reasonable answer. All you are doing is amplifying the dissonance of the article with your comments.

Happiness is a relative term. Everyone experience suffering, but it's how we deal with that suffering that defines our overall state of well being. If one holds onto something that causes suffering to long, it becomes inefficienct. If one lets go of suffering to early, it's an indication there is a lack of sacredness.

Podcast however, there's "Writing Excuses". I've been listening for years. Totally amazing depth and breadth, hundreds of episodes covering all aspects of storytelling and authorship.

A friend and I started a company that helps make it easy to tell your own story and prompts to with questions to get started. It's called "Emberall" and is on the iOS App Store if you want to try it out.

https://www.amazon.com/Narrative-Design-Working-Imagination-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_McKee

But it is not about that, it is about simple stories.

A lot of people travel to very nice places on holiday, some people don't get to do that. But have you noticed people that you work with go somewhere fantastic and then have nothing to say about it? Bad storytelling!!!

Meanwhile, a good storyteller will be able to walk into town, or maybe just take their dog for a walk and be able to come back with a story. The story could be anecdotal, something seen along the way, or it could be about some other dog and owner met. Bungie jumping in Borneo might not be something that really helps conversation, people don't relate to it, no matter how outer-worldly it is. However, meeting a sweet dog and lovely owner, a story can come out of that, one that can be related to.

Going back to childhood, there are other opportunities - the formal dinner setting where adults are willing to listen to a child's story. For a child to hold their own and maybe get laughs, that all has to be learned. If the child has a reputation for disruption then the invite to the top table will not be a thing and the opportunity to tell stories in a way that works with an audience is not there.

If a child is brought up without love then there is no chance for that child to learn how to tell stories in a social setting, i.e. relevant (beginning, middle, end), with audience engaged, true rather than fanciful, with consideration for others that are different and so on. The ability to tell stories that people want to hear should be an innate thing, developed with language. But some kids are not loved and therefore do not have that social engagement where stories are shared. These kids grow up in their own world so they do have stories but they only make sense in their world, not some broader happy society context. Hence not good story tellers. The motivation and the innate ability is not there.

Therefore I suspect that there are reasons why being a good storyteller is a signifier. Would you want someone that does not do stories to be parenting your child? No. For men this is not thought of as such a big deal, but why is this? Men do not have maternal instincts and it is the 'mother's tongue' that gets learned for a good reason. Women know they can get a more loving partner by rating the story telling ability of men, men don't always care about that.

It is possible to help someone that is not a good storyteller become better at it. This involves treating them a little bit like how you might have a conversation with an 8 year old child, asking lots of basic questions to get them comfortable sharing the story. I have yet to meet a human being that does not like talking, even if shy. Just through listening and questions one can get someone able to do things like stick to the plot and not go rambling off. Then through normal friendship you can get them to want to share stories. So far everything is all about them... But, listen, ask the right questions. Then, as time goes by you can start to get to talk about other stories, e.g. one's own or the world at large, or involving a shared interest. This sort of therapy is not available on the NHS, however, people do make friends at work and those that don't have the childhood wiring for good storytelling can be brought into the fold, gossip coaxed out of them on tea breaks.

Clearly the internet has created new opportunities for storytelling. If you are not from that broken home/foster home background where things like storytelling just do not get learned, then what to do? Write!!! If you get good feedback on your writing then you will be encouraged to further develop your storytelling ability. Although there are big books that can tell you how to do it better, practice is the true teacher.

With respect to the article, I see storytelling as something very much tied into child development and I don't see how that aspect can't be gone into properly.

It's actually a really interesting read in our modern age of status update storytelling. It deals directly with the art of "status play" as the key to being amusing. It's amazing how much of making people laugh and enjoy your company comes down to managing your display of status and being able to diminish it for other's pleasure.

I have the curse/gift of growing up in a Maritime family with deep Scottish and Irish roots. Talk about a group that values the art of diminished status.

Or, to answer in another way, because people in falling marriages feel like it's something worth saving, that they try to find help with achieving that. Who are you to tell them otherwise, and generalize that to all marriage counselors and people wanting to save their marriage?

A while ago, I ran two Tinder bots connected to CleverBot; one with a female account and the other with a male account (Both with attractive pictures). Female matches did not tolerate the male bot talking gibberish, while male matches went out of their way to try and make sense of what the female bot was saying.

Hilarious as it was, I had to cut it because it was immoral.