Storytelling with Purpose: Redefining Your Community with Narratives that Encourage
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If I told you a story about a famous writer, would you believe me, or would you be more inclined to believe the story if you read it in a major magazine or newspaper? This is part of Bobby Duffy’s book Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding. As you try to create meaningful connections in the world while reading and watching news, social media, and other outlets that undergird your world of truth, who will you believe?
As someone who is creating a safe, interfaith community of writers, the two chapters of this book that stood out to me were Filtering Our Worlds and Who’s Most Wrong? Although data is important, there are studies that indicate that humans have selective attention, which allows us to tune out what we don’t want.[1] Therefore, the invisible algorithms “provide a passive stream of data…used to shape what we see and experience.”[2] These are referred to as filter bubbles that provide “the interaction between our tendency to favour data that supports our worldview”[3] and not always favorably. It becomes our online echo chamber, filtering in all the things that Mr. Algorithm already knows we are interested in.
This form of confirmation bias influences our perception and decision-making and, dare I say, leads to misunderstandings and false beliefs. The more we click and read articles and social media posts, the more similar articles appear.
A few years back, I began to recognize a shift in my mood when I opened the news, so I made a bold decision to stop reading mainstream news. Now I subscribe to news platforms such as Nice News, 1440 News, and Tangle News. They are all free, and I only get the facts or news that create a dopamine lift.
Duffy refers to the delusions that can sweep us away from our moral compass because “social norms determine the acceptability of behaviour in all sorts of spheres of life.”[4] This narrative fallacy is described as something that happens when a person puts a series of circumstances or life events into a particular order to help them better understand.
“The narrative fallacy addresses our limited ability to look at sequences of facts without weaving an explanation into them, or, equivalently forcing a logical link, an arrow of relationship, upon them.”[5] This is crucial for navigating daily life. However, sometimes those linear cause-and-effect narratives become distorted, and then our world becomes skewed.
What happens when those tales lead us astray because they are cloaked in falsehood? This dance between stories and reality is one we all contend with, for stories shape our understanding in ways that are as subtle as they are profound.
The Power of Personal Stories
As a storyteller, I love a good story, but I am leery of what I read online. At the heart of a good story is a desire for personal meaning. Stories become the fabric of identity, a blueprint of dreams, and the guiding stars in your darkest of nights. And yet, the stories we weave can be fraught with biases, inconsistencies, and outright lies. They are a lens through which we interpret the world, but what if it is more tinted than transparent?
So, Who is Most Wrong?
I don’t agree with all the subtext of Duffy’s explanation of who can be most wrong, and I give my reasons after each one.
Emotional Expressiveness: According to Duffy, how a person expresses themselves outwardly—facial expressions, body language, and vocal intonations—encompasses their ability to effectively convey their inner emotional state to others, which influences social interactions and interpersonal relationships. This is not inclusive of people who are neurodivergent.
Education Levels: After a study was performed in a list of 38 countries, there was a direct connection between higher education and perception levels. Marginalized people, often born from humble circumstances, are “keenly aware that all is not well under the sun, they may offer richer perspectives on suffering and sacrifice, and truer visions of the human condition, than those who from birth are told the world is theirs to command.”[6]
Media and Politics: We already know they go hand in hand. As a basis of the Misperceptions Index, Duffy also discovered that most people will form beliefs according to party affiliation. What about those who don’t claim a party affiliation?
Perhaps some of this, or all of this, has to do with the Dunning-Kruger effect, where a person believes they are so right that they can’t possibly be wrong. Isn’t that how extremist groups are born?
How Do You Stop the Madness of Delusion?
“We can slow down and consider whether we’re being led astray.”[7] The more we slow down and reflect on who we are and what we really believe can help reshape our storytelling.
We all deal with moral dilemmas, but God created us with the ability to know right from wrong. “Humans are caught—in their lives, in their thoughts, in their hungers and ambitions, in their avarice and cruelty, and in their kindness and generosity too—in a net of good and evil.”[8]
Keep writing, keep exploring, and never stop seeking your truth. May you embrace your journey as a leader with an open heart and mind, knowing that you have the power to inspire change and ignite self-discovery through your words and stories. Let us continue this path of growth together, one story at a time.
[1] Steven Yantis, “The Neural Basis of Selective Attention,” Association of Psychological Science 17, no. 2 (April 2008), 10.1111/j.1467-8721.2008.00554.x.
[2] Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 172.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., 66.
[5] Nassim Nicholas Taleb, The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Second Edition (New York: Random House, 2010), 117. Kindle Edition.
[6] Paul Rogat Loeb, Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in Challenging Times (New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2010), 57.
[7] Bobby Duffy, Why We’re Wrong About Nearly Everything, 226.
[8] John Steinbeck, East of Eden, John Steinbeck Centennial Edition (1902-2002) (New York: Viking Press, 2003), 582.
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About the Author
Nancy Blackman
10 responses to “Storytelling with Purpose: Redefining Your Community with Narratives that Encourage”
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Hi Nancy,
Your quote from Paul Rogat Loeb, saying that the lower education results in a better perception of reality is a good example of diversion of information (with Duffy saying otherwise). This diversion makes it difficult to gain an accurate picture of reality (because of “what we’re told”).
Do you find that when writing, you’re forced to slow down and engage in systems 2 thinking?
Hi Christy,
Great question. It depends on what I’m writing. If I’m writing devotionals or meditations, there is no forcing. I become a scribe and just let the Holy Spirit move through me and my writing.
When I’m writing an essay that requires some research, I do have to slow down. First, to do the research, and then to put all that research into my own words and thoughts.
If I’m writing fiction, I sometimes see my fingers moving and just let the words flow through me. In those times, I can be surprised what I see on the blank page.
Writing has become a way of worship for me, so slowing down is a beautiful way for me to sense God’s presence.
Nancy,
I appreciate your blog and your focus on slowing down. I also appreciate the different news outlets that you focus on and the dopamaine lift they might give you. I do wonder though, how do you keep yourself from just sticking your head in the sand and not being in touch with the latest news?
Hi Adam,
If you re-read my post, you will see that I’m not moving away from all news outlets. I have learned to read from news outlets that give me the facts only.
It is in doing this that I am able to use my own critical thinking skills to decide what I think about what is going on rather than to have others tell me what I need to or should think.
Hi Nancy, thank you for your post! Interesting…
When do linear cause-and-effect narratives become distorted, and how does this distortion affect your perception of reality?
Hi Shela,
As young children we are guided by our parents (hopefully in positive ways) to think certain things because they are passing on what they know. That’s all they can do, right?
Then, we leave home (in Western cultures) and can be hit with the perceptions of others that don’t match what you were taught early on. If a person clutches on to the thoughts of their early childhood without allowing themselves the chance to hear what others might have experienced or learned, they can go down a dangerous rabbit hole. That’s my 2cents. 🙂
Nancy, thank you for your post. You mentioned the concept of “neurodivergent.” I’m not very familiar with this. Would you say more about that?
Hi Chad,
The dictionary defines neurodivergence as: “divergence in mental or neurological function from what is considered typical or normal (frequently used with reference to autistic spectrum disorders).”
Here is a link I grabbed from a quick Google search: https://www.forbes.com/health/mind/what-is-neurodivergent/.
People who have been diagnosed as neurodivergent often struggle with hearing someone speak without being able to see their body language. They also struggle with emotional expressions, thus, coming across a bit awkward in social situations.
Hi Nancy, When reading your post, I thought about your comments on your NPO being about a safe place for an interfaith community of writers. I had just read the intro to our next book when the author, David Rock says that “we will get to know our brain the way the brain likes, by reading a story” (p.ix). I am wondering if you have any thoughts about what might be learned from this community of storytellers being able to create in a safe place. My sense is that it could be pretty impressive. Any thoughts?
Hi Diane,
Yes, I am already witnessing that on the Medium.com writing platform, where I own a publication: Refresh the Soul (https://medium.com/refresh-the-soul).
The purpose is when a writer is allowed to explore their world through the lens of writing and other creative outlets, it can impact them as well as others, but that community must be a place that holds them with grace, mercy, love, and encouragement. I have seen some amazing things happen already just through encouraging someone to step up and write a weekly column. One woman in particular, who was very cautious and skeptical about writing a weekly column for Refresh the Soul has now blossomed and become a writer who deeply touches others with her writing.