We live as people of the Narrative. We’re becoming more and more comfortable with this idea in many places, both secular and spiritual. Even our liminal spaces are becoming places where narrative unfolds with meaning, if not with action and movement.
We need stories, but we need specific kinds of stories, especially as we develop leadership, thinking that cuts against the grain, as we walk journeys that differ from the path most often travelled.
Here are the stories I have come to recognise the need for. Of course, attached to stories, are storytellers – sometimes the messenger, sometimes the subject of autobiography. I need these storytellers and their stories – and I suspect, especially for those making our way from the edge to the centre and back again.. that you do too..
I need the stories of people who have done things differently to me.
I need the stories of people who are still doing things differently.
I need the stories of people who are doing the same things as me.
I need the stories of people who are doing the same things as me, and more.
I need the stories of people who have done things better than me.
I need the stories of people who have/are succeeding where I have not.
I need the stories of people who have/are failing where I have not.
I need the stories of people whose answers I do not have.
I need the stories of people whose questions I can assist.
I need the stories of people who will not give up despite hopelessness.
I need the stories of people who have given up with good cause.
I need the stories of people I have no compassion for.
I need the stories of people that seem not to matter, for meaning percolates.
I need the stories of people that survive, and those who do not.
Do you notice a theme in these stories we need?
He tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
Ask me, what is the most important thing, and I will tell you – it is people, it is people, it is people. The breath of Life.
The Storytellers
I need the storytellers who can share the biography and autobiography of their own narrative and local meta-narrative. Those who understand the beauty of moments when you recognise the same story, on opposite sides of the ocean, at the other end of the island.