To tell a story is a powerful talent.
To listen to someone sharing a story is the best gift you can give a human being.
The gift I have given family, friends, and strangers alike, was the gift of listening to their stories.
It’s a gift that I myself cherish, when I find someone who is willing to listen to my stories, because its just as they say, “It takes one to know one.”
Humans have endured the toughest times. Witnessed inhumanity at its worst. Tried to find relief in the worst of circumstances. Humans are the victims of their own atrocities. We forget the consequences of our reactions to the pain we suffer.
Through thousands of years, humans have held their fate through their stories. Telling stories is a skill and a talent that some try to learn. Others seem to be born with it. But for one to tell, another must listen.
The giver is the teller. The gift is the story. The receiver, the listener.
I witnessed the power of storytelling as a very young child. Upon observing my grandmother turn away from a somber, pale look in her eyes staring out a window and turning in my direction, to share a story with me.
If you’ve ever stood in a room darkened by the shadow of a cloudy sky lightened by a sudden warm light of the sun breaking through. Then you will understand what it feels like to watch someone light up in your presence when you ask them to share a story with you.
As we live life filled with many shadows darkening our existence. As we see the darkness fall upon so many small beings around the earth. The unbearable pain of empathizing with a friend, a family member, or a stranger—these are human traits.
We are all storytellers and we all share different perspectives. We stand in different spaces within this vast shell covering the earth with land and sea. To set our view above the earth, we would all share the same perspective.
We would see us all as a whole. All the stories of pain and suffering would become one story in our time, of our humanity.
How can we cast some light on the earth’s shadow below? We feel powerless as one. We were born as one with the power of many.
Many before us who all shared this one common trait. From the walls in a cave to the screens on our smartphones, we share stories.
To tell stories is a power. To listen is a gift. To feel is human.