Our Collective Story

This past Monday morning, about 15 hours after our first ever Launchers Fest wrapped, I was at the New Delhi airport, getting on a plane to Mumbai. I had forgotten to pick up a book for the ride, which is not great for me because nowadays I almost exclusively only read physical books while I'm traveling. So I went to the bookstore near my gate and picked up 'Sapiens' by Yuval Noah Harari, a book I've heard a lot about but hadn't had the chance to read.

Fast forward to right now, Thursday morning, and I'm already on page 233 of this 500ish page book. Why? Because this book is blowing my mind.

But this guide isn't about this book. I'm not going to give you my opinion or review of the book. In fact, I technically can't even have an opinion on this book because opinions are subjective and everything printed in this book is 100% historical fact and objective truth.

What does this book have to do with storytelling? A lot, actually. And you can find that answer when you read it. But don't do that right now, wait until you finish this guide.

The reason why I'm talking about this book in this guide is because of a very simple fact this book laid on me around page 25: our species, the homo sapiens, were completely unremarkable as a species up until about 70,000 years ago, that is, until we invented a new way of communicating: language and fiction.

As soon as we made up those two things, we pretty quickly rose to the top of the food chain. We were not the strongest animal on the planet, but we figured out a way to be the cleverest and that enabled us to make the sapiens the last living human species on the planet.

How? Because we started believing in the stories we told ourselves and these stories connected us and thus made us part of one "Collective Story".

Let's expand on the value of that.

Writing was invented about 5,000 years ago. Not because someone wanted to write a letter or a rhyme, but to keep a track of trades and taxes.

Every story that you've ever heard that may have happened more than 5,000 years ago was not told by writing it down, but rather by word of mouth. Before we created a written script, people were literally 'story tellers'.

So, what kind of stories were we telling about 30, 40, 50, 60 thousand years ago?

The same kinds of stories we tell today: legends and myths about gods, heaven and hell.

We humans are the first and only species to talk about, and then believe in, things and beings that we can't see and that don't exist.

The reason why religion and culture and countries and money exist today is because of a fictional concept our ancestors created over the last 30,000 years ago.

But it isn't enough to just make something up. It only becomes a story when you make someone else believe in it too. And if you can get your whole village to believe it, then they'll tell their kids to believe it too. Then those kids will grow up and visit another village and spread your fiction. This happens over hundreds and thousands of years and now that fiction is a collective reality because an entire region believes in it.

You could take a child born in India today, and immediately take it to another culture, say, Sweden. And tell it no stories about India or his/her lineage, that child will grow up to be a Swede, because it'll learn everything from the story that governs their region. Do the opposite, bring a child from Sweden to India, and he/she will grow up like any other Indian.

Stories are not passed on via genes from generation to generation, that is what makes them not 'real' in the tangible sense of the word. But we choose to believe in it, so it becomes real to us. And because we all believe in the same story, we make it a collective story.

The reason I wanted to talk about this in this guide is because it gives us a deeper context for why we're the only species which can read, write, speak, sing, and do so many other things that would make our dogs wonder why we're so weird.

Humans rule the world because we believe in stories together.

When you're in a foreign city, and you don't speak their language or know anyone there, and then you hear a stranger speaking your language, you immediately feel a connection with them. You might even go say Hi or give them a nod. I've done that. Because I know that you're from my city or a Punjabi or an Indian, we have a shared history and culture that connects us. 

Fiction. That's what makes us unique. It connects strangers. 'They' become 'us'.

And we do it on purpose - we make things up and choose to believe in them - so we can feel a purpose, so we can know that we're here for a reason. Even though that reason too, is fictional.

It's about trust. And trust leads to domination. And survival.

Unlike lies, these stories - religion, culture, social structures, money - are rather imagined realities, something that everyone believes in collectively. They will exist as long as we want them to.

Stories are powerful. They become real if we collectively choose to believe in them. So we must take that responsibility seriously.

Sure, this doesn't have a direct correlation to you wanting to write about your life or writing poetry or a fictional take on dragons. However, almost every story you'll ever write, will either be about a being - human or otherwise. And if you give that being the power of thought, then you're giving it the power of belief. And that being too can create and imagine realities.

Like I said, this guide is about figuring out the context of storytelling. Why we do it. Why it works. And why it should matter.

We don't tell stories just when we're writing them. We don't tell stories just when we're posting them on Instagram and Snapchat.

We tell stories when we talk to our friends, our family, our teachers, our coworkers, strangers.

Your personality is a story you've been working on since the day you started talking to yourself.

The lives we live today - go to school, go to college, find a job, have a family, buy a house, have children, go on vacations, live happily and peacefully - these are collective stories that we all participate in. Some parts of this story we inherited (not genetically, but through culture), but that doesn't mean we can't forget new paths along the way.

The best thing about fiction is that it really is an infinite playground.

So, where do we go from here?

Well, you and I together can't stop people from believing in stories like religion and money and nation borders, we cannot change the past and we also may not be able to change the process of imagined realities that we started thousands of years ago, but...

We can shape the stories we tell ourselves. We can decide what stories get passed on to those around us, and perhaps even after us.

I personally believe that fictional stories are lies that tell the truth about who we are. And I want us - the Launchora community and maybe perhaps our species - to tell stories that tell the honest truth about ourselves. Not just what we want the world and future generations to see, but who we know we are.

The stories we choose to tell today will add to the collective story we've been telling for a millennia. And maybe, the new stories we tell today will be told thousands of years from now.

Because the one thing that hasn't changed about human beings over these past thousands of years is our ability to create.

So, what should you do next?

Find your story. One that is the real you. And tell it. Share it. Believe it. Live it. Be it.

Because if we're all just going to be stories, why not make it a good one?

Start writing now!