3 Critical Reasons Stories Are Important to Our Lives and Culture
If you are a rude or wicked person, people around you may decide it is the way ‘your people’ behave even if untrue. How you dress, eat, behave, or talk tells a story.
It might seem unbelievable to link the survival of our lives and culture to storytelling, but there is a connection. You tell stories through arts, dresses, food, behaviour, and other cultural items.
For example, when you wear the traditional clothes of your tribe, you tell other people a story about your culture.
Stories are things you say about yourself or other people, as well as your actions and inactions. That’s why stories and culture are inseparable. Once you decide on a way of life, you start a story.
The Future of a Culture Depends on Stories
Whether it is the culture of a tribe, a family or a company, stories keep a culture from extinction. It is like a secret recipe for keeping a business above its competitors. But, you must share its secret with the next generation or lose that culture.
For example, if ten years from now, fewer Yoruba kids can make the ewedu soup, we can project the soup might go extinct in another ten or twenty years.
Imagine a Yoruba lifestyle without ewedu.
It tells a story of how the older generation failed to pass down the recipe and the practice of cooking such a delicacy.
I don’t think ewedu is going down like the dinosaur, but languages, style, and other practices have gone extinct because people failed to pass them to the next generation. Now we have an advantage in using technology to teach and preserve our culture.
A Measure of Progress and Decline
Two weeks ago, a taxi driver complained about the songs played on the radio. He said Nigerian musicians praised questionable characters in their songs and associated themselves with the ‘yahoo-yahoo’ crime.
He said our culture was changing, and I agreed with him. But I also reminded him that the highlife maestros of the past praised thieves and thugs.
The story did not change, only the sound quality improved while the lyrics worsened.
(put a picture comparing dancers of old versus today’s dancers)
Our music, movies, trending dance moves, and social media activities reveal how culture has improved or worsened.
Recently, I watched a music channel for an hour, and it was all backside, abs, breasts, and penile curves with better sound and video quality.
The stories I learned did not represent a country with countless mosques, shrines, and churches.
Is this growth or decay? You decide.
Weakens or Strengthens Our Humanity
Your stories have the power to bring people up or pull them down, which is why it’s important that you choose wisely when sharing stories.
When you lift people up, our society improves. When you push others down, humanity suffers a setback.
Our stories make us think about our ways and the problems of poor leadership, family disappointment, and poverty.
But it also makes a joke of our troubles and weaknesses to help us get over them. Through our popular arts and the use of technology, we either expose our intelligence or stupidity.
Whichever way, our stories help us think about these problems, to either find solutions or accept them as the new normal. These choices determine whether a culture dies or survives.
Conclusion: Tell the Right Stories
Be careful with what you are saying with your mouth, dress, behaviour, or even food because an audience is watching. Your audience may be young, gullible minds ready to copy you, or customers looking to do business with you. Stories have the power to drive both positive and negative change.
Stories are core to our culture. It reveals our failures, celebrates our successes, and shapes the future. Tell the right stories with your words and actions, whether online or offline. The future of our culture and the culture of our future depend on it.
