The artifacts of our survival matter. The stories about how we acquired them, how we used them, how we shared them matter even more. (Photo courtesy Mika Baumeister.)
When impassible snows come, when barbarians threaten the town, when summer sun bakes the crops to wilted stalks, stories keep us alive. Stories remind us how to survive. How did those who came before manage to endure? We retell and retell and retell, the stories preserving information as much has they preserve motivation.
Why did grandpa give away groceries from the family shop during the Great Depression? People were hungry, the story goes. He gave people food because people needed to eat. But he almost lost the store, the story goes. Yes, but stores aren’t lives, and lives are so much more fragile.
How did survivors of The Camps endure? They reminded themselves of those who had survived before them, who had given everything to ensure a future that would not fade. A crust of bread may have been vital, a crowd for keeping warm essential, but the stories were imperative.
How does the story go? That’s always the question a child asks when learning about what came before. As we get older, we ask the same question, but sometimes we use different words. What are the lessons of history? What’s the previous market performance trend? How did the company arrive at its staffing decision?
Stories make the future because stories define the past. We tell stories to rehearse what’s ahead, and we tell stories to remind us of how we made it this far.
These days, survival seems to be the word on everyone’s mind. Whether it’s actual, mortal survival or a less tangible, more metaphorical kind, the realties of a global pandemic have everyone thinking about their own sustainability every day. It’s hard to know the right decision for dozens of choices large and small, and we turn to narratives of various types to inform us.
Last month 1AU Global Media announced we were working on something significant, something substantial. As a media and communications group we’re clearly not about to release a new medical treatment, nor a means for preserving small business liquidity, nor a smart solution for helping disparate political views join each other in common cause (although one would think that would be an emergent reality on it’s own! But that’s a conversation for another space). But we do tell stories. That’s our purpose. That’s our heartbeat.
So watch this space! Coming soon—this Spring, if all goes well—we’ll be announcing the release of a major new creative work developed expressly for the purpose of helping to close the metaphoric gap that’s got us all distanced from each other. It won’t cure Covid-19 precisely, or at least not directly. But survival inventions are never just one thing: no magic vaccine, nor moment of transformation when the weather gets warm, nor congressional relief package. Our survival invention is a willingness to lean in to the stories that got us here, the ones that bind us together, the ones that we want to share.
That’s what we’re working on right now. Soon. Soon.
Watch this space.