Why We Tell Stories: Weaving Connection and Empathy Through Our Words and Our Lives

(This essay engages with two works; Hiromi Goto’s “A Bending Light: Thoughts on Story, Diversity and Social Responsibility” published in Ricepaper Magazine on 8 Oct. 2017, and Madeleine Thien’s “Simple Recipes” published in The Penguin Book of Canadian Short Stories, 2008.)

Stories are powerful — almost beings of their own. They cast their own shadows over our lives and entangle themselves in our minds and hearts, and at their very best, they connect us — to each other, to the world, and to ourselves. This is one of the lessons Hiromi Goto imparts on the reader in her piece “A Bending Light: Thoughts on Story, Diversity, and Social Responsibility”. Goto supposes that we tell stories not only to connect with others, but to give our individual experiences validity and power in the larger context of the world we live in. I think this is a very valid point, and an important thing to understand if we ourselves wish to change and shape the world through stories. There is ample evidence of this power in Madeleine Thien’s short story “Simple Recipes”, where the author shares with us the experiences of a first-generation immigrant, and her connection to the food her father cooked when she was young. Both Thien’s story and Goto’s article show that regardless of how specific or unique our experiences are, it is important to share them, because through these stories we get the connection we crave as human beings, we become more empathetic and open-minded people, and we are all much better for it.

Stories, whether they are complete fiction or grown from a seed of truth and our own lived experiences, come from our own lives and from the lenses through which we view the world. Sharing those unique world views can allow so many things to happen — it can allow us to heal from past traumas, for us to form better understanding and empathy, and feel connected and understood. Hiromi Goto writes:

Stories … can serve as time travel modules as well as being the most perfect empathy- generating operations with holographic capabilities. Stories can create imaginary simulations of experience so rich and dense they can feel like they are your own. We can live and die, mourn and rejoice; we can feel affinity for a fictional character in a more intimate way than we can feel for our dearest friends and lovers, because we are allowed access to a character’s mind. … This magic is not a bubble world that exists in a neutral space. The magic was wrought by the author who has a connection to the world she was born into, and she consciously and subconsciously carries those relationships into the story. (Goto)

This can be true not just for fiction, but for non-fiction writing as well. In the example of personal essays, or short non-fiction narrative stories, we as readers still get lost in the minds and actions of the characters presented to us, and we can often empathise even more with these characters than fictional ones, when we know what they are going through happened in the same world we inhabit. I loved what Goto said about being allowed to see into a character’s mind, how this makes us infinitely more close with them than we can be with people we have real relationships with. This is part of why reading and storytelling allows us to be more empathetic; by getting a glimpse into someone else’s mind, we inherently begin to relate to them, because the only times we ever get to hear what’s going on in someone’s mind other than our own is when we are reading or watching stories. Getting to see the world from another’s perspective — being able to understand why some people do what they do or say what they say — can make us realise that we are far more similar than we are different, and this allows us to empathize much more easily.

Madeleine Thien’s “Simple Recipes” shows us that pouring your heart out onto the page — whether the actual story comes from a grain of truth or not, showing the world the experiences you have grown from and what has shaped you, helps carve out a space for other stories like yours to follow. Representation — in Thien’s case, the representation of First-Generation Canadians, of connecting to one’s familial homeland through food, of that generational disconnect that so many can relate to — in story telling is key, and it is important that people are allowed to tell their own stories, especially when those people come from marginalized or disenfranchised communities. Not seeing yourself represented in media is a reality for so many people every single day — this underrepresentation results in so many things, from yourself and others believing you aren’t capable of certain things to feeling like you are alone in the world with what you experience. Nobody is alone — there will always be people who relate to you, who see you, who understand you; but how do we make connections with those people if not through stories? There are several passages from Thien’s writing that stood out for me, but this one has stayed with me for quite some time:

A face changes over time, it becomes clearer. In my father’s face, I have seen everything pass. Anger that has stripped it of anything recognizable, so that it is only a face of bones and skin. And then, at other times, so much pain that it is unbearable, his face so full of grief it might dissolve. (Thien)

What Thien says about faces — about seeing different things in them over time, as we grow and change and learn and perhaps drift apart — I think can also be said about stories. What we see in stories changes; it changes depending on who is reading the story, on where that person is at in their life, and it can change from the time we first read a story to when we revisit it years later. That is the beauty of them, and speaks to how much we project onto stories our own questions, feelings and experiences. We foster empathy and understanding of the world our whole lives, planting the seeds when we are young and watering daily as these ideas grow and change along with us — it is such a good thing when we can recognize that things change over time. Be it a face or a story or a long-held opinion — our empathy, which is what we learn from hearing and reading more and more stories — allows us to never stop learning, and gain more clarity over time.

Feeling that human connection can change lives. Being more open and empathetic makes us better people, and in turn helps our world to be better. There is so much work we can and need to do in our society — right now, the way our society functions is actively harming so many people and communities. To address this, and to fight for change effectively, those who aren’t affected by these issues directly need to listen to those who are. The best ways to do this are through listening, and reading, and in turn growing a better understanding, and more empathy. The more people we talk to, the more voices we listen to and the more we read of experiences and lives that differ from our own, the more we are all accurately represented and understood.

The more justice and equality there will be in the world. Telling stories doesn’t just make us better — it makes the world better. It is truly a very unique thing, telling and sharing stories. From the first person to relay an experience to another, from the first embellishment and campfire tale to stories in songs and movies and relayed across the internet all over the world, they are a part of us, part of the very essence that makes us human.