In order to make sense out of anything -- analyzing the past, explaining the present, predicting the future -- the human brain relies on story.
Once, when someone at a party mentioned to me that they were not originally from Los Angeles, I asked, "When did you move here?"
A simple enough question, I thought, but I got a short autobiography in reply. The person framed their decision to move to southern California within (1) the context of the circumstances leading up to the decision to move, (2) the factors going into the timing of the move, and (3) the reason why they ended up where they did.
Far more information than I had sought, but I have to admit that I felt I had gotten to know this stranger a bit better through their story.
More evidence that a story's power lies in its emotional context.
And our strongest memories are those tied to powerfully felt emotions.
For example, I had the good fortune to drive across the country from New York to Arizona with my father at the age of eight. The memory of that trip -- nothing less than an emotion-packed, life-changing adventure for a young boy, especially when he gets to share it with his father -- is still fresh in my mind and I've always attributed my love of travel to that first journey.
And I retain what I call "snapshot memories" of specific happenings of that trip, still very clear in my mind:
* Scrambling into a darkened cave, a known outlaw hideout in the Old West, I can still see the stalactites and stalagmites in the shadowy light, still hear the drip, drip, drip of water onto the stone floor
* I can still hear the yowls of pain when seeing another young boy trip and land onto the spiny thorns of a short barrel cactus outside a motel where we had stopped
* I can still see a large, long-legged dog with half-closed eyes as he saunters up to me and displays a freshly killed Gila monster dangling from his mouth
In the last half century or so, the general sense of our society's "progress" has been largely based on technological achievements, from the moon landing to the invention of the computer, the Space Age to the Digital Age. In the process, science has seduced us with the allure of precise measurement, exactitude in a constantly changing world. As a result, facts have assumed a great importance in the Western world.
At the same time, stories have been dismissed as unimportant, even useless, yet stories remain how we transform facts into knowledge, how we give facts meaning. All explanations are stories. Stories are how we remember facts in the first place.
Oh, and Happy Holidays...
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
A "LinkedIn Thing" and an End to the Suspense
Curious thing happened a couple days ago--as usual, when I logged on to LinkedIn I was confronted with a short list of "People You May Know."
Normally, I recognize most of the people that LinkedIn proffers, though my desire to click on the "Invite" button varies. This time, however, one of the names was an Assistant Production Manager (at the time) with whom I'd worked some years ago on the four MCA/Universal productions of William Shatner's "TekWar" telefilms.
The two things I've always remembered about Deb Patz was (1) that she is one of the flat-out nicest people I had ever worked with, and (2) that she is one of the most professional, most flat-out competent Production Managers with whom I have ever worked.
Talk about a narrative--try combining "nicest" and "most competent" in a business context without crashing your hard drive.
On top of that, she's a competitive sailor and has written an important industry book, FILM PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT 101. (Learn more about it at www.debpatz.com.)
I immediately invited Deb to link up and tonight she did. Then, in a quick, brief email exchange we began to catch up about the years we've not been in touch. Communication has been restored.
We're both at that point where we measure the passage of time by comparing our children's ages, but still it feels good. We're back in touch--no small thing in this hurry-up world.
And now, an end to the suspense.
My son's team did indeed win the finals of this year's Mock Trial competition put on by the Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF) and, out of a field of more than 40 area middle schools, has been named the County Champion.
The finals were tense, with the large courtroom in the Los Angeles Superior Court building overflowing, but the defense team came through in the end. After the trial was over (and the judge had pronounced the fictional suspect "not guilty"), the nail biting began as we had to wait nearly an hour before we were readmitted to the room, desperate to hear which team had won the last round of competition.
But first, about an hour of awards presentations--at least my son's teacher/mentor was honored with the Teacher of the Year commendation--before the CRF spokesman announced the middle school and high school countywide champions.
As you might expect, when my son's school was named the middle school champ, we all went crazy.
After a frenzied moment of howls and hugs, though, I noticed that the kids on his team were as dignified in victory as they'd been through the whole series of court cases--they each made a point of approaching the defeated team's members and offering their hands in congratulation.
Nice.
Normally, I recognize most of the people that LinkedIn proffers, though my desire to click on the "Invite" button varies. This time, however, one of the names was an Assistant Production Manager (at the time) with whom I'd worked some years ago on the four MCA/Universal productions of William Shatner's "TekWar" telefilms.
The two things I've always remembered about Deb Patz was (1) that she is one of the flat-out nicest people I had ever worked with, and (2) that she is one of the most professional, most flat-out competent Production Managers with whom I have ever worked.
Talk about a narrative--try combining "nicest" and "most competent" in a business context without crashing your hard drive.
On top of that, she's a competitive sailor and has written an important industry book, FILM PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT 101. (Learn more about it at www.debpatz.com.)
I immediately invited Deb to link up and tonight she did. Then, in a quick, brief email exchange we began to catch up about the years we've not been in touch. Communication has been restored.
We're both at that point where we measure the passage of time by comparing our children's ages, but still it feels good. We're back in touch--no small thing in this hurry-up world.
And now, an end to the suspense.
My son's team did indeed win the finals of this year's Mock Trial competition put on by the Constitutional Rights Foundation (CRF) and, out of a field of more than 40 area middle schools, has been named the County Champion.
The finals were tense, with the large courtroom in the Los Angeles Superior Court building overflowing, but the defense team came through in the end. After the trial was over (and the judge had pronounced the fictional suspect "not guilty"), the nail biting began as we had to wait nearly an hour before we were readmitted to the room, desperate to hear which team had won the last round of competition.
But first, about an hour of awards presentations--at least my son's teacher/mentor was honored with the Teacher of the Year commendation--before the CRF spokesman announced the middle school and high school countywide champions.
As you might expect, when my son's school was named the middle school champ, we all went crazy.
After a frenzied moment of howls and hugs, though, I noticed that the kids on his team were as dignified in victory as they'd been through the whole series of court cases--they each made a point of approaching the defeated team's members and offering their hands in congratulation.
Nice.
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