The Power of Stories

Over the last few days I’ve been thinking about stories, about how it shapes our world and how stories personally have an impact on me. And I also bear in mind that not everyone hears the same story or message, and not all stories are necessarily good. I guess as writers and human beings we have to make it our responsibility to share stories that matter and make a difference because you never know who is listening.

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Do you remember the first book that got you into reading? The book that started out thousands of adventures with countless characters, fictional or otherwise. Do you remember how it felt to flip page after page ‘til before you know it you’re at the end of the book? Do you remember how it felt to close the book and put it back on the shelf? Because I still remember it all.

Surprisingly for me it wasn’t harry potter (I was too young to appreciate reading when it first came out and I started loving the movies first) It was Percy Jackson and the lightning thief. I still remember being surprised when my mom got it for me (since I wasn’t much of a reader then) but as I started reading page after page before I realized it my adventure with Percy had already ended and I was already itching for the next book in the series. I remember being exited as I was nearing the end of the book. I also remember being cheated as Rick Riordan (the author) would place the first chapter of the next book in the end, making you think the adventure still has a few chapters left and quite usually he’d leave you with cliffhangers (Riordan really loved to toy with his readers). I also remember feeling hollowed out as I closed the book, as if I had really been on that adventure and its time to part ways with the friends you made. 

Stories have the power to move us, make us feel, take us to far off lands without traveling. Stories shape how we perceive the world and how we navigate our way through reality. Through stories we learn where we come from, the story of our family, country and world. Through the stories we are told as children we are taught how to act, how to be. Through stories we build dreams and shape our futures. Stories are at the very core of what makes us human.

“Humans beings are in a storm of stories.” -Jonathan Gottschall, The Story Telling Animal

It is through the stories I’ve been immersed in that shaped who I am today. It is through the adventures with Percy and Harry that I learned to be brave in the face of adversity. It was Rowling’s wizarding world that I learned of tolerance, kindness and even loss.

(My tribute to Allan Rickman the beloved Professor Snape)

Stories also help us cope with harsh realities. They provide comfort and friends when you feel alone. It is through books that I was able to deal with my grandfather’s cancer and his death. I found friends in those trying times. I remember drowning in pages as we sat in hospital rooms. I remember always holding on to a book everywhere I went. Books at that point in my life acted like a sort of portkey (an object enchanted to act as a portal or teleportation device in harry potter). Books as most readers will know became an escape, a quick trip down Hogsmead to have butterbeer with the trio, or go fight medusa or the hydra, anything but reality was better. Its not a healthy way of dealing with grief but it helped immensely.

Even today stories still help ease reality. Although these stories are not necessarily bound in paper but in screens, still stories none the less. May it be an episode, a movie or a book, stories help us learn empathy. They teach us what it is to be human and to feel. They empower us to carry on. They help us embrace who we are as well us give us a glimpse of the people we want to be. Through heroes that inspire us that we recognize the values we hold dear and aspire to uphold. 

(Spiderman, marvels greatest and truest hero, kind and brave and selfless)

I remember how Percy Jackson always ate blue food, blue coke and blue jelly beans. It was how his mother taught him that there is no such thing as impossible, even blue coke. It wasn’t the sword fights and monsters that stuck with me nearly 5 years after I’ve read the books but little stories like this that define the characters we love. It is this story that I look back on when I question the path that I am on. It is in believing in the impossible that I have the courage to face each day with wonder.

(I had my sister bake blue cookies a tribute to Percy Jackson)

Stories, the right stories rather will make you excited for life and the world around us. Through stories in books about adventurers, great sights, Indiana jones and other people’s stories about adventures I was propelled to go on my own adventures. To climb mountains, chase the waves and dive in to the great unknown. In doing so I write my own story.

“Make the decision that would make for a better story.”

A quote I picked up online a few years back, its sounds reckless and impulsive but if you really think about it reminds us of the role we play in shaping our own stories. It reminds us that after all is said and done, and the ink has dried what will be left of us are the stories we lived, told, and shared. As writers of our tales, it is up to us to create stories worth telling, adventures worth having and memories worth sharing. It is through the stories we leave behind that we will be remembered.

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'til next time. thanks for reading steemit!