Attaching a personal story to the life of Stephen Hawking

I think on Social Media a lot of what goes viral relates to a compelling story. Even if theoretical, it tags to a sensation. Its well timed, well thought out. Throughout history man’s passions and struggles have been represented in the fashion of “well told stories”. I will briefly tell a story that puts in perspective the life of Stephen Hawking and the passion we should have for cosmology.

I have not in my entire life received a gift from my dad that was more valuable than a book dubbed “A brief history of time” by Stephen Hawking — when I was 16 years old — which unfortunately I ended up loosing in the past 2 years. My dad used to talk about stars and planets and I simply did not move beyond what school taught me in regards to the planets and the stars. But this book captivated me. I read it once, and it was too heavy. Then I read it the 2nd time and things started making sense. Since then, my perspective of life has always been shaped by the grandeur of what lies beyond our world. And the understanding of how insignificant we as humans are. To a grater degree, the religious perspective of humility as a value is never comprehended so well unless you understand how massive the cosmos / universe is and how powerless we are in the face of all that.

A story like this puts in perspective what a character Stephen Hawking was, but allow me to hijack this story to explain something more than this. The fact that as a society we lack the framework to create an empathizing channel through which we create significance for the passing away of someone that impactful. It may be a book, but how many people out there can really relate to how impactful it is unless they tell a story like this? This is why Stephen Hawking’s passing will a trivial event to many people.

Film makers have mastered this art. I also personally believe history and other important tangents in history should be told as stories that resonate to the passions that we have inside. What we tend to do in school nowadays is place a textbook in-front of a student, and expect him to get marks end of term. In an age of cloud, digital TV, and tablets.

Allow me to get philosophical on this.

This beats the whole point. When you do it for marks you do it like a machine. You learn, you replicate on a piece of paper, you get your marks, then you forget it the 2nd day after the exam.

But what if we told stories instead? What if you watched Marco Polo as that captivating story that you didn’t need to get marks for. When you do that, You captivate the reader as to the purpose of an important tangent in history. Nothing allows a reader or viewer to empathize more than when they follow the story invested, but most importantly, invested emotionally. You also build role models for society that people can passionately emulate. You create a lasting impression.

The purpose of story telling is to develop philosophy, not to enhance theoretical understanding. As human beings diversity — especially in creative thinking, is an asset. The major milestones and innovations man has made have been backed by an intriguing philosophy behind that specific achievement. We Uber because we believe we need to trust the cab driver beyond the duration of a ride. As simple as it is, its backed by a philosophy. You actually create impact and change society.

We should in actual sense captivate people as to how important the studies of a cosmos that we live in are. And we should tell them stories like these ones. So that when they see the passing of Stephen Hawking as a facebook feed, they never dismiss this as a trivial event. Actually, its not.