Oral storytelling has given me the power and tools to share my experiences, stories, joys and traumas of growing up in Afghanistan and the journey that followed. It has helped me conjure up narratives from the depth of memory which I had always thought was injured, broken and buried. Storytelling give me joy and I do hope others enjoy and learn from it too. It helps me create something useful out of my experiences, the experience of family and friends. I believe our sufferings, pain and disappointments should not be defining us but an experience that make us more powerful and insightful. I use storytelling to acknowledge my sorrows and pain and give it a place it deserve where it evokes laughter and inviting other to join in the laughter.
Very often people will ask me in bewilderment, "Are you a children storyteller?" or "what kind of stories do you tell?" Its often seen as this ancient practice reserved for fairytales but it is not. The fact is that we are all storytellers. We understand the world through stories and stories can change our very behaviour. We have an advanced brain but it never actually experiences everything and yet tells us stories about everything. Our brains have evolved to be a story process and not a logic processer. The thing that define us the most is our stories; the things we tell about ourselves, others and the society. Many people do things they have no reason why they might do, but they will still give a story or narrative to explain why they do the things they do. Its a magical way of understanding our actions, our relation with others and our surroundings.
We tell stories to sell religion, politics and to get ahead in life. In storytelling there is a term called confabulations. it’s when we make up a story while no explanation exist. This is made more vivid by an experiment in people with split brains (those with epilepsy and surgical disconnecting the two hemispheres) if you place a sign in one side such as drink, that person might go up and get a drink and when asked why they have done that, they will make up a story that they were thirsty. We all constantly make up stories to explain our thoughts and the cause of our behaviours. We often don't know why we do what we do or feel what we feel. We confabulate when theorising as to why we're depressed or justify moral convictions and we confabulate when explaining why a piece of music moves us. Our sense of self is organised by an unreliable narrator and that’s why psychologists will never ask for the reason why we did something unless they are interested in our stories.
In Afghanistan the oral storytelling tradition is a way of evolving narrative and creating bonds in the community. The storytelling tradition give narrative to our culture. it gives texture and depth to our lives. it’s an intersection of real and surreal, natural and supernatural enabling us to explore unconventional believes. Stories change as they are told depending on the teller and place. In Afghanistan stories are told with humour but also a reverence for the past. one way to look at humour is as a response to when life is absurd or when we can’t make a full and rounded meaning of a situation. There is a rich history for developing story plots, characters and meaning that is available to us which we can use to understand our actions, flaws, vulnerabilities and passions better. It’s not to say it should be used strictly but as weapons to enhance our narratives.
