The 'One Story' and its Consequences

We are all guilty of buying into the 'one story'. Somewhere, some time in each of our lives we have all said something like this: 'All politicians are liars'; 'No one who has been to Alaska can say it's not cold'; 'People who eat meat are unhealthy'. These are all examples of the 'one story', which are not only generalist and ineffective, but they are also untrue.

One Stories tend to lower the common denominator so that we can save ourselves the trouble of doing a lot of thinking about people and the things we do and have, which means we can sit and luxuriate in our own comfort zones. One Stories are breeding grounds for racism, sexism, and a whole lot of other isms which are all too easy to slip into.

Sure, we like to be connected to other people, so having some common bonds is good, but these need to be actively created rather than artificially constructed. Too much of the One Story and we no longer recognise and appreciate difference, and people are robbed of their dignity in the process.

Quite different to One Stories are Practised Stories - 'practised' does not mean that the telling is rehearsed, but that the stories are lived ones, by real people living real lives. Not only are the messages are rich and meaningful; they take us to a higher level of understanding of the complexity and richness of humanity in all its permutations. Practised stories are often known as applied stories - by this we mean that the stories that are experienced and reflected on are used to create positive transformational change.

Imagine a world that is rich with stories, a world that brings new delights each day. Imagine if the newspapers and current affairs programs were full of Practiced Stories rather than One Stories - Tiger Woods would not be apologising on screen for yet another extra-marital blunder but might actually say something interesting that he has learned about himself and the world. Then rather than hearing all the socially-contrived excuses, we might see how his experience has allowed Tiger and the rest of the world an opportunity to become positively transformed by his experience.

This does not mean to indicate that only celebrities are worthy of Practised Stories. In fact, the best Practised Stories are those about ordinary but distinguishably different people - in fact, the living and telling makes them a little less ordinary, a lot less stereotypical, and a little more distinguishably different. Practised Stories are empowering, humanising, and transformational - they show we exist, and how we exist.

Practised Stories reveal greater truths in the experiences themselves and are uncovered further in the telling. Obviously, this places a huge responsibility on the story practitioner, and this has more to do with intent and less to do with expertise.

If you want to find out more about being a Story Practitioner, go to the Story Practitioner's Space page.