Truth and Story – a tale of Forbidden Love

You know this story, don’t you?

‘Long, long ago, way back in some kind of Golden Age a figure fell to earth. It was a female figure of matchless beauty – and her name was Truth. And Truth saw with eyes that pierced the smoke and mirrors, she spotted the terrifying trends that would surely lead to catastrophe. ?Truth wandered from village to village looking for people to talk to - to tell them everything she knew, to warn them before it was too late.

But as soon as she appeared people screamed and ran away; they hid their children and blocked up their ears. Because – Truth was completely and gloriously Naked – and nobody can stand the Naked Truth.

One day she walked through a village - deserted as always, and eerily silent. As she walked on she heard shouts of laughter and whoops coming from a nearby wood. She crept in through the trees, and there, in a clearing, was a crowd of villagers. They were clustered round the most extravagant and larger-than-life figure, their upturned faces enraptured. The figure wore a glittering cloak of shifting colours, and as she looked she could make out whole universes embroidered – every plant, every animal shimmering and prancing on that magical cloak. The figure was striding up and down, gesticulating, provoking gales of laughter. His words flew up into the sky like sparks and clustered in fiery clouds over the heads of the mesmerised crowd, and then – then she heard what he was saying. And there wasn’t a word of truth in it.

“Stop! That’s nothing but a pack of Lies!” and as she stepped out from her tree the crowd evaporated – as usual.

?“Thanks a bunch” said Story – “you sure know how to wreck a story – I had them in the palm of my hand.”

They looked at each other, Truth and Story, bristling with mutual suspicion, for a long time…

Then, I don’t know exactly what happened all that night in the wood, but I do know that in the morning they walked out together hand in hand, and he had draped his cloak over her shoulders.

They went through the world together after that, and they do so still. Whenever Story goes off into one of his flights of fancy there is always a grain of truthfulness, and whenever Truth has something important to say she dresses it with story.?

But, and there is always a BUT – sometimes they become separated, and when they do we are all in deep sh**t.’ ?

?

I love that little parable – it’s so simple, but it encapsulates some profound truths about our current addiction to storytelling and dysfunctional relationship with truth.

It’s not entirely our fault and it’s crept up on us – a lethal game of ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf’ – accelerating ever since Oil and Tobacco companies in the 50s employed scientists to prove their products were safe. And don’t get me started on the travesties of recent elections worldwide - not to mention the beguiling stories that took Britain out of Europe.

We’re living in an era where the currency of truth is suffering catastrophic depreciation – in inverse proportion to the inflation of Story. Imagine them walking the world now – Truth a refugee being kettled into a holding camp; while Story struts about in an Italian silk suit, choking on a bulging cigar and barely sparing a thought for his childhood sweetheart.

So what’s gone wrong? Why aren’t Truth and Story living happily ever after? Are they simply incompatible? That would be a convenient ending for our lazy minds … ‘Right, that’s it, we gave it a go, but this relationship was never going to work – moving on, nothing to see here.’

But what if this is one of those precious relationships where, if we only put some effort into it, it could change the world – and not in the way it’s changing the world at the moment.

This, like so many aspects of Storytelling, is an enormous subject – what will it take for us to be able to work with Story in a healthy and mature way?

For this to happen there are some muscles to develop, or to re-activate from our analogue past. A consequence of information-overload and the tyranny of speed is that we can’t distinguish a parable from reality. Parables are stories told in the form of extended metaphors and we would have known, or had it signalled, that this particular story is one not to be taken literally, but for us to delve under the surface and find its secret message for ourselves.

Instead of doing this, we are reverting to the childish state of taking stories literally and then reacting to them in a binary way (look at social media). This makes us feel good and confirms us in our belief system. The neuroscience of belief is fascinating – what prompts an otherwise reasonable person to keep believing something – an idealogy/ a politician’s spin for example – to be the truth? Contrary to every scrap of evidence?

Like any addict we surrender our power to the addiction. The addiction is our primary relationship - in pursuit of the high. In this case the high is: justification for milky amnesia in the face of unpalatable facts; suspension of critical thinking; confirmation bias that gives us permission to feel good about ourselves; permission from the prevailing zeitgeist that ‘my truth is the truth because I believe it’; lining up in a tribe you’re either for or against, there is no middle ground, and at least we derive a sense of belonging… etc etc

?And the costs? Apart from losing the ability to work with and understand the delicate, deep-rooted power of storytelling?

Well, that would be allowing ourselves to justify our milky amnesia; making it OK to suspend our critical thinking; grasping at the straws of confirmation bias as a (very limited) basis for our self-esteem ; seeing the world in black and white and making that OK; lining up unconsciously in a tribe and promoting otherness etc etc

Can we help save the marriage? Can we be bothered?

As the children who suddenly realise that we are the next generation and it’s up to us we can go either way – stay infantile and wallow in self-righteousness and blame (it’s not our fault – it’s the education system, the politicians, the boss), OR do the hard work of seeking out those endangered species, viz

• Consciousness - waking up, being as conscious as possible in the face of all these stories ?
• Critical thinking – noticing when we’ve gone all binary and pausing to evaluate, get curious

In other words, let’s find and rescue Truth from her squalid conditions in the holding camp, march her up to Story, reintroduce them and then play moderator as they thrash out their marital differences. There will be words said on both sides, and wounds to heal.

But it will be worth it.

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