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And What Do You Do?
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I story for a living . . . the first one is free.
Would you like to hear one?
Taletelling
Storying has great power. It is at once entertainment,
education, illustration, creativity, a mnemonic device,
a means of communication, the sharing of important lessons,
and more -- much more.
Taletelling is a tool of myriad and varying uses.
You put it to use every
day, most likely without even realizing it. Tell anyone
what you did today? Or what you saw? Or thought?
Or felt? Or imagined?
Did you give someone a
description of that fantastic gee-gaw you absolutely must
have? Explain why you were late -- or early?
All stories. Some
simply more dramatic than others. Some told with more
or less verve. Some told with facts twisted or straight.
Storytelling is used in the business world often.
Presentation is storytelling. Marketing is storytelling.
Education is storytelling. In this instance, people
generally structure their story around facts.
In the culture I have
grown up in, we have segmented nearly everything.
Sorting, classifying, grouping, putting into patterns --
and thus we have done with stories. This is 'real',
'fact', 'fantasy', 'fancy', or even 'imaginary'.
We have drawn such strong lines of demarcation -- that often
we forget those lines are mere illusion.
Taletelling is the presentation of events, crafted
into a particular focus.
I dabble in myth, legend, possibilities, entertainment
and edutainment with taletelling.
And, as Graeme Edge so eloquently stated in
Late Lament (also noted as the spoken epilogue
of Nights in White Satin) from the Moody
Blues album Days of Future Passed:
. . . Cold hearted orb that
rules the night,
Removes the colours from our sight.
Red is grey and yellow white.
But we decide which is right.
And which is an illusion???
Late Lament
Come, grasp at shadows with me . . .we'll create tales.
Come back in another moon for another series of thoughts
on storytelling.
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