The meaning of Story telling

Harrison Owen owenhh at mindspring.com
Mon Dec 17 15:06:14 PST 2001


At 12:27 PM 12/17/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>Anyway, what I am really interested in, is: why doing the story telling. I
>know it is a hobby of Harrison and I think I could spend a lot of evenings
>listening to him telling stories, but in my opinion it's not that only.
>Maybe it has to do with language, because the word "stories" in Dutch means
>nothing special; it can also mean "gossip" or thing like that.
>Birgitt makes a strong point that storytelling is very necessary, so even
>prescribed, when you do OST on something that has to be done in the future.
>What I have understood, storytelling is basic in those cases to "get your
>feet first on the ground" (these are my own words).

For me -- Story telling is not an idle pursuit. It is also diametrically
opposed to Telling The Truth -- as in giving all the facts. Good stories
are beyond facts, and beyond truth -- They create the context in which we
can perceive both (facts and truth). so if there is a common story about
"the way things are around here" (proper name is Myth) to the effect that
it is all sh... That creates the context in which "we" hear whatever is
said. So -- The CEO says -- "This is a great place" -- and we "hear" just
the opposite. Because The Story is...

I rather suspect that OS is "just" story telling. It is sometimes helpful
to have a designated "story-telling time" but it will happen anyhow.

ho

>Harrison Owen

7808 River Falls Drive
Potomac, MD 20854 USA
phone 301-365-2093
Open Space Training www.openspaceworld.com
Open Space Institute www.openspaceworld.org
Personal website www.mindspring.com/~owenhh

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