Sander's Reflexions

Every evening I have to tell my daughter a story. It's taking her away from daily life. It makes her laugh of think (reflect). We are storytellers. People are storytellers. We do not only tell stories to our children. Everyday we are telling stories to our family, friends, colleagues, neighbours. I suggest to all of you to observe this during the day. Even large part of the news on the TV is story telling. That's why calamities are so interesting. They contain personal stories.

Stories are a way to transfer emotions. First we describe a context, the environment and the actors. Then there is a sequence of actions that influence the situation in a pleasant or unpleasant way. Stories are also a way to define our conceptual world. If you ask someone the meaning of compassion he will probably tell the story of the good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-33). Would you know what a hero is, if you've never heard a story about a hero? Stories give meaning to our life. Throughout the ages men all over the world have been telling stories about history and creation.

Teachers are storytellers. Through stories they inspire children and transfer their culture. Historians are storytellers too. They are even story writers. They collect facts, but these facts themselves do not tell the story. The historian makes the story about what has happened. Archaeologists are even better in it. Also detectives and lawyers create and tell stories using a limited number of facts. Fyodor Dostoevsky is a great story teller. His book The Brothers Karamazov has many interesting aspects. The main story line is about the murder of the father of the brothers Karamazov. Dostoevsky tells the story with a large number of detail, except for the murder. After the murder the persons in the book make up their version of the event. Their story. During the trial the public prosecutor and the defending lawyer have two completely different stories both using the facts in a reasonable explanation. At the end of the book it is still not clear who's done it. The truth is not known. Well in this case the truth might be that it is just a piece of fiction by Dostoevsky.

People need stories to give meaning to their life. In his book The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat : And Other Clinical Tales Oliver Sacks describes a man who has lost his memory due to the Korsakoff syndrome (chapter 12, A Matter of Identity). He has not only lost his memory, but also the story of his life. He is continuously inventing stories to create a context for himself to live in.

I'm also a storyteller. Well my stories are not the most scintillating. But engineers are also story tellers. When a customer observes some defects in a system. He asks me what's wrong with it and expects a story. Sometimes it is difficult to make clear that there is no story yet. I need more information. So, after some analysis I can make a story about the defect with a good explanation that it has been fixed. That's the easy case. Often there is not one story, there are several stories. Independent causes that result in similar problems. At worst these stories are interfering. Some facts fit in multiple stories. Some facts do not fit in any story at all. These facts are most disturbing me. At least in a computer system there should be a logic explanation.

Also in real life the unexplained facts are most disturbing the mind. We want to have a story that explains why things are happening. Some logic in our tragedy. A story that gives sense to the our life.