Breaking News…

The choice is rather simple, we can either tell the story or take it with us. If we choose the latter, silence will be its history, forever!

Everywhere we go there are stories just waiting to be heard, stories that need to be told. If we don’t take the time now to find out all of these stories, our personal history will vanish from the pages of our lives.

With all of the technology available to us today you would think it would be so much easier ro keep in touch with the relationships most meaningful to us. You’d think, right? Yet it seems like just the opposite is true. Everywhere you look people are connected to some form of social media platform with some sort of device, eavesdropping on a world that has little or nothing to do with them.

Families don’t eat together, and when they do there is still a need to be connected to a world outside of those who are sitting the closest to us. I can be as guilty as the next person! The need for information, mostly in the form of other people’s business, has us capturing tidbits of gossip which have little or nothing to do with the lives of those who should be most important to us.

Talk is not cheap…it is art!

The art of conversation in our own home with the people that surround us each day is vanishing. We are no longer interested in talking about the personal histories of those before us, the people who without, none of us would even be here. We don’t know the histories of grandmothers and grandfathers, let alone their parents. Who are they? What did they do? Where did they come from? Did they even have a favorite ice-cream, for God’s sake?

I get it! I really do! I am a big fan of technology, I love to be be able to know of interesting things going on no matter where in the world it might be. However, I am a bigger fan of the human spirit and how it has kept us all connected to one another on a personal level over the years. We are in danger as people, of losing the ability to interact with others near to us.

No one writes letters anymore! Ha! We certainly don’t pile into the car to go and visit grandma or grandpa much these days. Whoever classified a text message as actually talking to someone? Really? In fact, we barely call people these days! A text message seems to be the communication of choice.

I can tell you this, some of the best storytellers in the world are those standing just feet away from you. Their stories come to life through expression, and emotions that are true to who they are. There is no need to apply your own tone or meaning to what they are saying. They will live all of those thoughts for you in real time. The best of the best, all for your ears!

The upside of sadness…

This saddens me, but there is purpose here. Purpose for all of us, and certainly for those of us with a passion to write. What is your purpose? Do you even know? Today, everyone wants to write, to hold that published work in their hands. Who doesn’t want to be the next Stephen King? Of course, right?

Writing creatively can bring you some of the greatest rewards one could ever imagine. Storytelling will not only make you a better listener, it will make you a craftsman with your unique way of stringing words together. You will capture some of the greatest personal histories that would be lost forever if not for your help and guidance.

Hear my thoughts for a moment, will ya? I recently did some research with Ancestry. I was able to trace back, mostly through other people’s efforts, relatives that dated back all the way to the mid 1600’s! Wow, I thought! Then, who cares, I thought. This isn’t interesting at all! Where are the stories?

You see, many of us have no idea about much of the history closest to us. We know nothing of our families, close friends, places we lived growing up, our culture, not even our favorite ice-cream! Nobody is telling the stories! Nobody is holding onto the memories for future generations. People! Put your device down, who cares about the Kardashians?

Your own history will have no future…be the storyteller!

Talk soon…

G