Hello World!

That’s usually the first thing we learn as a programmer to write in any coding language. So what could be a better way to start the first blog post than by these words. 

Reaching out to other people is a human instinct, so much so that we have even sent out waves of information into the endless space in a bid to connect with other intelligent life forms. In the hopes that they might receive it and receive us. Since this is a storytelling blog, then let’s focus on the point of the hour –

‘StoryTelling is a human instinct too’.

Usually when people talk about human instincts, it’s always in the terms of survival instincts – fight or flight. We even forget the freeze instinct. Let alone any other instincts that humanity has – like the instinct to form pack bonds, to create art, to figure out how something works and more importantly to tell stories.

Asking why humans started telling each other stories is like asking why humans breathe. At this point, storytelling has become so fundamental to our existence, that from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed, there is some or the other story either being fed to us, or that we are busy feeding others.

Language Instinct and Story Telling Instinct

Author Steven Pinker has explained the position in his book ‘The Language Instinct’. He states that humans don’t have a ‘propensity’ to learn language. Instead, they have an ‘instinct’ to do so. 

So much so that there is a belief in the scientific community that leave a human child alone completely cut off from others – which is of course, unethical and impossible, but let’s hang that for a second for the sake of this thought process –  and they would still probably develop some rudimentary language.

On top of that, we are also constantly telling stories to each other, even to our own selves. Then it only comes to reason that storytelling instinct is intrinsically tied to the language instinct. And these two might even feed into each other. Is it any wonder then to ask if some language structures evolved to accommodate the need to tell stories.

All this serves to illustrate that storytelling is an instinct as ancient as humanity itself. Indeed, it is so deeply rooted that we find it challenging to ascertain precisely when the tradition of oral storytelling commenced.

With the advent of technology, stories have also changed and expanded into various forms of media. From oral traditions to writing to even performative arts. And now, in this world of declining attention spans, creators are finding a way to tell stories in under a few minutes.