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Laughed Til I Cried

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I had tears streaming down my face last night. I just couldn’t stop laughing. And it was a collision of juxtapositions that did it.
My grand daughter is about to turn two, and is full of life, and learning fast how to get what she wants from her doting grandparents, uncles and aunties.
It is beautiful to watch her learn, language, the world around her. Action packed days, unbelievable.
So for most of my own children’s lives, there has often been competition for time on the computer. Most of the time, we had just the one computer in our family.
So it still like that a bit today, especially when the boys get a new game.
Two year old Tzipora grabbed my hand and dragged me into my son’s room. She told her Dad, that “Mama wants you,” and dislodged him from the computer. Hard on his heels to take a turn was his younger brother. He was quickly grasped by the hand and dragged out of the room. She took me to the computer and said “puppies”. She wanted me to play her You Tube clips of puppies playing.
My sons are now standing gawkishly in the doorway, outstrategised, beaten at their own game, and thrown off the computer. They stood helpless, stunned and not sure whether to laugh or react.
That set me off. I just couldn’t stop laughing, for hours. It was her innocence, her smarts, and their bewilderment that got me.
All those years I couldn’t get them to do what I wanted. And a toddler manages to order them around.
And the contrast, of a little, only just verbal, child, able to order around these two big men.
It was powerful juxtaposition, my own embedded memories, and the natural way the whole scenario unfolded. I am still chuckling today.

Building Bottomless Backstory

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It struck home to me how popular the ‘making of’ movies and behind the scenes fly on the wall documentaries are. Sometimes they outsell the original film. Unplugged and live versions of music can also do better than original recordings.

It’s all evidence of how much we want to know about backstory, the story behind the story.

It’s the stuff of conversations round the water cooler, over a coffee, and often these days outside in the carpark with the smokers.

There are so many well produced, engineered and performed stories around today, there is a thirst for the authentic, for the warts and all ‘journey’ story. Not just the gloss or the gloom.

Great communication today is about knowing your backstory, having it watermarking everything you do. It is giving life to the cliche of transparency, nothing to hide. There is real freedom and real connection in weaving your backstory into your personal brand, the whole of you. Leave no stone unturned. However, at the same time, backstory can be used judiciously, it does not have to be a lifestory that dwells on the ups and downs. Focus on your audience and your intention in telling the story. Then a backstory can add value, and not occur as self indulgence.

Memory Crunch- The Efficiency of Story

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I had a great trip to the library today. I was somehow drawn to a particular book, some powerful synchronicity going on, as I was thinking about several themes for my own book in progress, JumpCut.

One book, When They Severed Earth from Sky: How the Human Mind Shapes Myth by Elizabeth and Paul Barber just about jumped off the shelf. It follows a line of thought that has excited me for a long time.

It provides evidence that stories and myths are not just random pieces of fiction and hocus pocus, but very accurate accounts of important events in the history of the world.

The Barbers also talk about how efficient mythology and the spoken word tradition was, to get to the absolote heart of a story, so that it would be long remembered accurately, sometimes for thousands of years.

I love this line of thinking. Stories are efficient. They do get to the point. And as the Barbers point out, western science now proves how stories land in at least three separate areas of the brain. So they are long remembered.

In JumpCut, I am going to explore how juxtaposition is a powerful technique that has been used in storytelling since ancient times too, because the jolt and jostle of well juxtaposed pieces of information, triangulate in the brain.

So many mythologies talk about when earth and sky were seperated, much as western science ow talks about the ‘big bang.’ It is all one and the same, just different languaging.

Teaching Kids via The Simpsons, Not the News

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More than  ten years ago I was lecturing journalism students at AUT University in Auckland about the fast changing narratives in television.

I told them I would rather my children watch The Simpsons in prime time that the 6 o’clock news. They would learn more about society, and more about multiple layers of contexts in our world. The sophistocation of a Simpsons script far ouweighted that of the news.  I was commenting too about how so called fiction and so called fact blur in terms of our reality.

I was new to academia and wrote my lecture off the cuff, without much knowledge of theoretic concepts,  having come from an industry rather than academic background. A colleague told me my lecture had been all about postmodernism. News to me. The episode I had discussed had ripped off Rupert Murdoch and his controlling power over global media.

I bumped into a student who had attended this lecture recently at party. Now a senior public relations practitioner, they recounted the story I had told about my kids and The Simpsons. It had stuck with her for a decade.

A key part of the resonance in this case was the juxtaposition of fact and fiction, of a cartoon and a ‘reality’ programme, and the suggestion that ran counter intuitively that the fiction was more factual than the news.

Being Drawn and Being Driven

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Juxtapositions are the great power behind our communication as human beings.  Life and death, tragedy and comedy, dark and light; some are opposites, some are contrasts, all have connections.

I was talking with a close friend the other day about motivation, and how sometimes, I do not feel driven to achieve, fulfil, act, succeed. It’s not an overtly bad thing, but sometimes I feel like I am selling myself a bit short. That was the tone of the conversation.

My friend, being insightful, said, Andrew you are not driven to do things, you are drawn to things, ideas and projects.  It was an aha moment for sure.

And an interesting juxtaposition. How much are we driven to do things versus drawn to do them? Both have their pitfalls. To be driven can be relentless and hellbent. Being drawn can be busy chaotic, overcommitted and like floating from one thing to another.

So of course with all wise solutions, a bit of both is the best thing. Driven to complete things, steer a course and keep going, drawn to the right course, and nagivating some where of benefit to oneself and others.

Working the Story Angles

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Great stories are about great angles. An angle gives us a ‘way in’ to a bunch of information.

Journalism and advertising have working the angles perfected. We ‘get’ the story in the news and ads really fast, because the angle is sharp. So the focus is sharp.

The key thing about angles too is Juxtaposition. It is what is place next to what, and with what angle. Twist and spin are word that get associated with the angles created for stories; most often with a negative slur.

But the truth is, every time some information is conveyed, the sender brings some element of subjectivity to the way they tell the story. It’s human nature.

If we didn’t have angles for stories, and no juxtapositions, we would have plain unadulterated data,information; perhaps screes of it. With no way to navigate. Angles and juxtapositions give us a way to navigate, just like landmarks.

I’m currently exploring the power of juxtaposition in everything in life; the big stories and the litle stories we tell about ourselves, about our world and our place in it.

Give it All Away

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In this time of reinvention, what we pay for, what we give away, what we exchange is changing fast.
I’ve only at the lovely age of 50 started to get my head around my deeply ingrained issues about money, value and returns.
It is in my nature to do a whole bunch of things for free, give away my expertise, ideas and time.
But sometimes I have ended up wondering why I do that. Is it to make a difference for others, or to make myself feel good.
Hmmmm, it really is something to think about. What do we do for others and why. In the area of storytelling, what do we share for free versus sell? Or exchange. And what value do we put on these exchanges and ourselves?
This has really come home to me on two occasions just lately where goods and services I received were part of the so called ‘gift economy’ so I paid what ever I liked for them. This is more confronting than one might think.
What is something really worth to us? Instantly I went to calculating what it costs to produce and offer these services; in one case a Vipassana meditation course, another some food at the Wise Cicada cafe in Auckland that runs on gifts and no charges. But what was more valuable was to stop and think what the value of these things was for me, and how much did I want to support the enterprises that were ‘doing good’ for others.
The whole process of thinking about value and exchange is getting really important, as our material world seems to be blowing out.

Maori Response to Christchurch Quake Victims

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There continue to be many stories being told in the aftermath of the Christchurch earthquake; some in the gloom and doom formula of the mainstream news media, some anecdotes online and spread by word of mouth. Everyone in New Zealand has a connection some how or other. We all want to share in the experience somehow.
This story is one that moved me deeply.
I know a Maori kaumatua, or elder, who lives in the North of New Zealand who had a lot of family in Christchurch. Immediately after the quake, he paid for more than 40 family members to be flown to a family farm in the far north.
It was a shock to the system for the family all round; for the family traumatised by the quake, as it was for the family taking in a large number of people. But also a shift in culture from urban to rural living overnight.
The kids had to quickly get used to the idea of living in tents, using longdrop and portaloo toilets permanently. They learnt how to catch eels in the stream and pigs in the hills. They learnt how to walk several kilometres to a rural school.
The family on the farm approached the kaumatua and asked if he had some money. “Oh some I suppose, what for?”
They told him: “Enough for 15 bags of cement. The ground in the tents is getting muddy, we want to build some concrete pads and make it more comfortable under the tents.
The kaumatua helped out, but said to the family, don’t forget you always have a resource here, just sell some beef to get some cash when you need it, and grow some veges.”
This is as I understand it, the Maori way. When there is a need, family responds. We have heard about people taking others into their homes from Christchurch, but nearly 50 people is something else.
There is a lot of talk in New Zealand right now about something called whanau ora, roughly translating as family wellness. It is a concept government is funding to try and improve the lives of Maori, or potentially have Maori improve their lives for themselves. Many people are cynical about the concept. Many authorities are trying to quantify it in wester health policy terms.
This little story is the perfect example of whanau ora in action. Maori, in touch with their roots, collectively care for one another when a need arises. Everyone mucks in and finds an instant solution.
It may not meet all the rules, and from a distance look rough around the edges, but it is a response to a need. Maori, whatever their circumstance always provide manaakitanga, welcome, hospitality, care and love for others when ever and how ever it is needed. And maybe this model might be far better than so many flawed ones taht we use in western society for health and wellbeing.