Storytelling the past to make a mark on the future.

Sociology has a theory called the “social cycle theory”. You’ve probably heard of it, even if you don’t know its name. This is the idea that all events in the history of society repeat themselves in cycles. You can see this in the two World Wars. No one wanted a second World War and, yet, it happened. You can see it in financial crisis. When we get out of one, we promise not to have another and, yet again, we surely walk towards a new one. It almost feels like it’s a non-stoppable cycle. But what if it was? What if we could use some kind of device to pass on what we learned to the next generation? What if this device was: storytelling? Storytelling is a powerful mean of communication. Everyone likes to hear a good story and then share it again. Why not then take this powerful tool and use it to stop the cycles of history? We can ask our elders to tell us their past, share their experiences, to show us what they’ve been through and we can avoid it. They, after all, know how it all happened and can help us avoid it.