People You Can Picture With Your Eyes Closed

An ode to the storyteller... before everything became gurus and spam.

Photo of Derek MacDonald with his grandfather, Norman.

I’ve been thinking a lot about how people used to tell stories and how that’s changed.

Stories were just how we communicated with each other, but now they feel incredibly different. At least, to me they do.

I can’t tell you the last time I heard someone tell a story or write something that sounded anything close to how my grandfather would’ve told it. He told stories you could see. And he always sounded like he was setting up a punchline, so you had to make sure to listen so you wouldn’t miss it.

“How’s it going, Norm?” someone would ask.

He’d reply with, “Can’t complain... wouldn’t do much good anyway”

*ba dum tss*

That would be his icebreaker, but then he’d follow it up with more substance. He’d tell you he ran into someone recently and then set the scene. He’d describe the person, maybe use a few hand gestures. Then he’d get to the part where he’d interacted with this guy, and he’d take you through the action.

“now this fella, he turns to me and says...

“and I finally get a good look at him...

“so then he goes...”

He was a remarkable storyteller and I simply can’t do him justice. But that type of story with its back-n-forth dialogue and an energy that moves… it was just how everyone seemed to communicate.

Thinking back, it’s easy to write it off as a generational thing. Especially since my sample here is my grandfather and his friends. But I’m convinced it’s just because they were the product of a world that operated a certain way. I don’t feel like ours is really the same world anymore. Not like the one they lived in, at least. And that kind of bums me out.

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This whole thing’s been bugging me. Then, recently while grabbing lunch at a local cafe, something finally clicked.

I’d situated myself at a table along a wall of windows, and pulled out my laptop to read the latest from Linda Caroll, a writer I like for her contrarian commentary on literature—new and old. What I really like about reading things from Linda is that she regularly references literary icons to contrast the modern group-think of social media. Her essays feel like a little history lesson, disguised as a coffee chat between friends.

While I ate, I read what she wrote about Bukowski, and it got me thinking: a lot of the classic wisdom that gets shared online now comes from authors who sound like they’d been thinking out loud to themselves.

I’ve watched swarms of people try to be prolific like that on social media. They declare and claim. Convince. They state without story. The pendulum feels like it’s swung so far toward presenting expertise, that it’s landed us in a world where people only try to create scarcity and gain authority with their words.

But there’s nothing to picture from what they share, you know?

Sitting in that cafe lost in thought, I’d watched as two young kids played tag by using the rest of us as shields. Their mom looked tired… hair a little ruffled, jacket only halfway on, arms full of things and nowhere to put it all. Her expression fell slightly while her toddlers scrambled between the tables. But when I smiled, she did too, and we didn’t have to say a word. As I’d sat back in my chair, smirking to myself, I tried to label the feeling that settled into my chest.

Later when I’d glanced at the kids and their mom a few tables over, she gave a small nod and this time I got to return the gesture.

I’d found the word I’d been looking for...

Acceptance.

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Stories used to be a way of co-creating acceptance with the people around us. Without phones or social media, people talked while moving through their day. Not through a set of AirPods, either, but to the people IRL walking past them. Just chit-chatting about things with total strangers. They’d tell each other stories. And all those stories, it seems, were about something other than the hottest new tips for how to be a functioning person. No, they’d tell you about something from their life or about the people in it.

Everywhere I look now, it feels like it’s only people, profiles, and pages trying to tell me and everyone else what to do.

But, um… hello??

I do not want gurus and spam?
That’s why I stay away from Instagram.
I do not want them, day or night.
Not in my ears or in my sight.
I do not want gurus and spam...

It’s... it’s become completely ridiculous, right? Is it just me? Like, honestly, I just want to hear stories from people about someone they ran into throughout the day. I want to read more things that aren’t self-promotion poorly disguised as hyperbolic life-lessons. Real stories, with people I can see with my eyes closed.

Maybe a punchline or two? Some scenery? I can’t seem to find much of that at all these days. Not like how my grandfather would’ve said it. Sometimes, it makes me feel quite alone. It’s times like that when I says to no one, I says “bahhh; fine. I’ll write my own.” And I have been. But even I have to admit I get pulled by the world around me into patterns of storyless communication.

Still, how cool is it that while everyone’s trying to be prolific on social media, there are folks out there who can remind you of just how human we are? The kind who share what’s going on in their life; without the gurus and spam.

Thank goodness for those who tell stories—who create acceptance with icebreakers, scenes, and interactions. And people you can picture with your eyes closed.

onward.

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