The Octopus and the Story
How an octopus resembles storytelling and the many ways we perceive them.
When I was very young, my birth father, also a scuba diver, brought home a mesh bag with fish. When he dumped its contents into the kitchen sink, an octopus appeared to my surprise.
My father said that he did not mean to catch it. He used a spear gun to catch the fish. But the octopus slipped in the bag and was being quite difficult when he tried get it out and set it free.
This octopus grabbed everything it could with its tentacles. Including a spoon and butter knife. He saved the live octobus, after wrestling with it, in a bucket with sea water. I don’t know what happened after that. I just remember what a comotion that octopus made in our house.
You’re probably wondering, outside this memory—this story, what the octopus has to do with stories. Right?
I was thinking about the thing that I am always thinking about a few minutes ago. Stories and storytelling. Suddenly I thought of an octopus. That’s when this memory popped up.
Stories have many faces. There are many different types of stories. Many depend on the storyteller and their perspective.
The teacher uses them to educate. The preacher uses them to preach. The politician uses them to influence. Many people use stories to send a message, to prove a point, or to captivate someone’s interest.
People who create art use stories to express themselves. Sometimes consciously, and sometimes subconsciously. Filmmakers, song writers, and others—they tell stories through intent.
I compare all of these to an octopus. A story has many faces and they represent the tentacles. The head is the story itself.
Humans and stories have been together since the beginning of our known existence through pictures on cave walls.
I’ve been talking about this for many years, but in 2019, this story was published about the 1oldest story ever told.
The story was 43,900 years old. It’s a story about hunting. While we’ve always known about pictures on cave walls, and considered them storytelling, this is the first known picture “story” found by archeologists.
There are countless ways to perceive a story and tell a story.
Ever since the internet became accessible to the masses in its more recent form, in the 90’s, we’ve shared our stories around the world in a way we had not before.
Each tentacle is a format, or manner, in which we share stories. There is one less obvious way we tell stories that is not so evident. It’s not conscious. It’s perceived. Perception can be prejudiced through our own life experience. I wrote something about this, if you care to dive in, Who Are We?
We can communicate a story by the way we speak, the way we dress, the way we move, and the way we handle situations. While this can get complicated, it’s best to know ourselves better and educate ourselves so that we perceive things in a more genuine manner. The most important thing we can do to be a better person regarding perception is the willingness to admit when we get it wrong. This is my opinion.
We can argue all we want about who someone is, but who are we trying to convince, anyway? Ourselves? The other person?
The story we perceive about situations and people, things and events, have to do with a very personal part of who we are. No one is able to project their personal story in a perfect manner. It’s up to you and me to accept we may be prejudiced in our perceptions through our experiences in life.
There is a mutual respect between us, that we will accept each other’s story about who we are individually. The story about who we are is not through perception.
It’s through our understanding based on how we approach circumstances, our ability to learn from the experiences of others, our empathy for one another, and how we can see beyond ourselves to realize the true meaning of each other’s stories. After all, we are the protagonist in our stories. To tell a story that captivates others, we must include them, not just ourselves.
The octopus is grabbing everything within its reach in a new environment, for self-preservation. When you have a story to tell, think of all your tentacles as options. Grabbing at everything at all once will not be as productive a means, as focusing on one tentacle.
Know what I think? I think filmmaking is the best way to tell stories, but I realize it takes intent, focus and tenacity. It’s a big challenge. Aren’t you glad you can start with the 4k camera in your pocket right now?
Inspire yourself.
