Why Do We Tell Stories?

What makes humans tell stories? And why have we been doing that across cultures, globally, for thousands of years — if not tens of thousands? We create situations, figures and characters, both human and non-human, and instil them with characteristics, relevance and power. We invent names, faces, fears, desires and problems, and then spend months, years or even generations living inside the world of those characters. But what makes humans want to do that in the first place?

Fiction writers are today's storytellers of old. Do we write and share fiction for entertainment alone, or is there something deeper at work? Are we sharing collective, conscious ideas, or using stories to understand and explore the human condition to which most, if not all, humans are subject in their daily lives, regardless of culture or lifestyle? Or is a story simply escapism?

Interestingly, as novelists, we are sharing this act of communication beyond our own tribe and the people we know — potentially with millions of people we have never met and never will meet. We create worlds and characters that exist only in our imagination, and somehow feel compelled to manifest them in words and share them with strangers. A personal example for me is my love of the writing of Gabriel García Márquez, who creates characters I can 100% identify with in a particularly unfamiliar culture, completely removed from my own, and therefore better relished for that unfamiliar landscape.

As today's novelists, we share stories about people who never existed with people we will never meet, and yet something drives us to create them, give them lives, fears, desires and problems, and tell their stories. Perhaps the story itself has become something we need to express, whether anyone hears it or not. If nobody were ever going to read the story, would the novelist still have needed to write it? And what is it, exactly, that makes people need to tell a story at all?

Love at first sight — feral attraction or a deeper recognition?

What is that spark that we have probably all experienced at some point in our lives — that jolt of excitement when two people meet? Often labelled love at first sight, but is it any more than a feral physical attraction? Or even a projection? Or is it something deeper that our unconscious recognises before the mind has time to catch up?

In 2017, researchers at the University of Groningen investigated reported experiences of love at first sight through an online study, a laboratory study and three real-world dating events. Yes, people reported experiences of love at first sight, but in reality physical attraction was the strongest predictor. That may or may not lead to a further deepening of intimacy and commitment over time, but it does appear to be a common initial and functional doorway opening to something more later down the line.

But that still leaves something unexplained. Why do certain people feel strangely familiar the moment we meet them? Maybe familiarity influences attraction, and that can include exposure we may not consciously remember. Or could it be a kind of “sympathetic resonance” — sensing something in a stranger that echoes a positive experience from someone in our past? Is our brain rapidly recognising something in their face, manner, voice or behaviour? Is it chemistry, hormones, energy? NLP has spent years looking at what it calls modalities — body language, pace of speech, mirroring and matching as ways of creating rapport — and perhaps some of this happens unconsciously when two people meet. Perhaps we are picking up an extraordinary number of tiny signals without being aware of it, or perhaps we just think they look really hot! 

Love at first sight feels great — let's be honest about that. But is it love in any real sense? Is it a recognition of something in the other that our conscious mind can't yet explain? Or is it something much simpler than that — are we just suckers for turning a powerful first attraction into a story about two people who were meant for each other, as if it were written in the stars?

Organ Transplants — Can They Really Change Tastes and Behaviours?

What if the new organ giving you a new chance at life arrived with hidden extras?

There are a surprising number of stories from transplant recipients who developed new tastes, habits or even personality traits that seemed to belong to their donor. After Claire Sylvia received a heart and lung transplant in 1988, it was famously reported that she developed a sudden craving for beer, green peppers and chicken nuggets — foods she hadn't particularly liked before. She later discovered that her young donor had apparently loved exactly those things.

One of the stranger stories comes from a five-year-old boy called Daryl who received a heart transplant. He wasn't told his donor's name, age or how he had died. Afterwards, he began talking about the little boy whose heart he believed he carried. He called him Timmy, guessed that he was about three years old and said that Timmy liked Power Rangers — just as he had done himself. The family later found out that the donor was a three-year-old boy called Thomas, known to his family as Tim. He had died after falling from an apartment window while trying to reach a Power Rangers toy. After the transplant, Daryl apparently wanted nothing more to do with his own Power Rangers. And who can blame him...

Coincidence? A child's imagination? Something connected with the trauma, medication or transplant itself? Or something we don't yet understand? A new lease of life as a result of a new heart is one thing, but so many recipients report acting and feeling different and having different tastes, including obsessions with eating pizza and drinking pints of Guinness. Major surgery, medication, better health, renewed energy levels and the psychological weirdness of receiving somebody else's body parts could go some way to explaining it.

But on a cellular level, who knows? Cellular memory could well be a real explanation — that within our cells and DNA we carry memories, and perhaps even aspects of our identity. That's a big thought: you get a new heart and you also get a new identity — at least in part. New discoveries and theories are cropping up about the brain not being the exclusive intelligence in the body. Perhaps every organ, every cell, carries some of the same super-intelligence and memories. That's another piece for me to explore on the Perry Black Whiteboard.

In reality, if you received somebody else's internal organ, especially the heart, would you really expect it to change nothing about you?

Does Creativity Require Intelligence?

Let's begin by dropping these ingredients into the melting pot:

CREATIVITY: “The use of skill and imagination to produce something new or to produce art.”
— Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 

INTELLIGENCE: “The ability to learn, understand and think in a logical way about things; the ability to do this well.”
— Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary 

“The chief enemy of creativity is good sense.”
— Pablo Picasso

“Sometimes I feel that an initial idea kind of lands on me seemingly from nowhere.”
— Björn Ulvaeus from ABBA

“An accident is perhaps the only thing that really inspires us...”
— Igor Stravinsky

When Stravinsky was working on The Rite of Spring, his music sounded so strange to his landlady that she complained about all the “wrong” notes coming from his piano. What was wrong to her was, of course, precisely what Stravinsky was looking for. 

So if creativity is essentially bringing something into existence that wasn't there before, and intelligence is arranging, understanding or manipulating what already exists, can we have one without the other?

A highly intelligent person may be able to understand the allegory and process behind a particular painting, or understand a piece of music perfectly, explain why it works and deconstruct it note by note. But that doesn't necessarily mean they could paint or conceive a concept like that, or compose music such as that. A novelist creates characters who never existed, makes them behave in ways even the writer didn't anticipate and then discovers that those unexpected choices are exactly what make the story extraordinary.

Sometimes the best creative decisions may be the ones we didn't consciously make at all. The wrong note. The accidental brushstroke. The character who refuses to behave.

And that could be why creatives often function better late into the night. The conscious mind is too tired to be 'in the way' of the creative process. Perhaps creativity needs that childlike wonder and spark of bringing something into being that wasn't in existence before, without the conscious mind interfering too much with what is happening.

Does creativity require intelligence? My view is that it can help in shaping what has been manifested or created, but that it can also, and often does, become a hindrance to the purity, childlike wonder and spark of bringing something into being that wasn't in existence before.

And what about intelligence without creativity? That definitely can exist, but how bloody dull would life be if everyone was like that?! Ha ha ha.

“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction.”
— Pablo Picasso

Nietzsche's Eternal Recurrence

— Would You Live Your Life Again?

Here's an interesting proposition: what if you had to live your life again and again and again, exactly in every way as it has been, nothing changed about it at all, not a thing, for all eternity?

“I'll keep the good bits but lose the awful bits.”

No. Everything stays. The person who broke your heart stays. The thing you did that you regret stays. The opportunity you missed stays. The loved ones you lost. The stupid thing you said twenty years ago stays.

And so does the wonderful stuff. The people you loved. The moments you wish could have lasted forever. The places. The laughter. The unexpected turns. The serendipitous moments. All of it. Forever.

For me, having lived an extraordinary and unusually varied life, I would personally recoil at the idea. That idea of repetition may be a comfort in some ways — the familiar, knowing what the story contains, knowing what comes next. Being comfortable with the familiar is a remarkably powerful motivator and, at various crossroads in our lives, it could be a deciding factor in choosing not to risk, and therefore not to grow.

Does not wanting to live the exact life over again mean the life you are in is not satisfactory? No. Does it mean you aren't seeing the beauty of this life around you now? No. For me, on the contrary, it could be that the life you're living now has satisfied you, that you recognise the blessings, that you have grown through it and are ready to lay it to rest contentedly behind you.

In my novel Before We Were Us, I explore something of this: different lives, same two people. And perhaps the possibility that, despite changing everything around us, some things remain stubbornly the same. It is their job to grow and live forwards, to slough the behaviours, limiting beliefs and limitations that hold them back and essentially keep them in repeat. That is perhaps our mission in our lifetimes too, should we choose to accept that unwritten brief.

And oh, how we can so easily not do that within the confines of our own single lifetime:

“If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get where you always got.”

Myth or Madness

When Did Romantic Love Begin?

Were people actually falling madly in love with each other two, five or ten thousand years ago — or did we invent romantic love somewhere along the way?

We assume falling hopelessly in love is one of those things that has simply been part of being human since the beginning of time. But was it?

Did a Roman man write love poetry because he genuinely couldn't stop thinking about a particular woman? Did people in ancient Greece experience the same butterflies, obsession, jealousy and sexual longing that we do? Or were relationships practical affairs involving family, property, children and social survival — with the idea of being hopelessly in love arriving, perhaps dressed in flowers and carrying a lute?

The ancient Greeks apparently had plenty to say about love. Sappho, writing around 600 BC, described the physical effects of desire in very familiar terms — trembling, sweating, being unable to speak properly and feeling as though she might die. If that's not the ancient equivalent of having a complete meltdown over somebody, I'm not sure what is.

The Romans weren't immune. Ovid wrote extensively about love, seduction and sexual desire, while Catullus produced some very personal poetry about his complicated relationship with a woman he called Lesbia. He manages to swing between adoration, lust, jealousy, anger and despair with an enthusiasm that would probably be quite recognisable to anybody who has ever checked their phone 50 times waiting for a text message.

So humans have always been capable of falling spectacularly for someone.

But for much of history, marriage wasn't necessarily about finding the person who made your heart beat faster. Property, inheritance, family alliances, children and social position mattered enormously. Even when people did marry for affection, the idea that your husband or wife should simultaneously be your great romantic passion, best friend, sexual partner and the one person in the world who truly understands you is a fairly extraordinary expectation.

Then, somewhere along the medieval road, things began to get seriously romantic. The troubadours of medieval Europe developed the language of courtly love — yearning, devotion, unattainable women, secret passion and the agonising beauty of not actually getting what you wanted. The Lancelot and Guinevere legend, for example, helped romantic love acquire something of a mythology around it.

Perhaps that mythology matters, because once we start telling stories about love, we also start creating an idea of what love is supposed to feel like, and that is a whole different source of challenge in itself!

And then along comes Shakespeare, who gave us an extraordinary collection of people who were completely incapable of behaving sensibly once they had fallen in love. Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra — none were too good at keeping their emotions within reasonable boundaries.

And today? We've arrived at the idea that the person we fall in love with should be the person we want to grow old with, have sex with, laugh with, confide in, raise children with, holiday with, share our deepest thoughts with and still fancy when we're both eighty.

No pressure...

Why Did Christianity Reject Reincarnation?

Unlike Buddhism, Christianity doesn't seem aligned with the concept of reincarnation, aside from Jesus rising again on the third day... Until you start poking around in the history of the early church.

The idea that a soul might have existed in a life before and might come back in another life was around in ancient Greece. The Greeks discussed transmigration of the soul for centuries, and early Christian thinkers such as Origen were exploring the same ideas. There are also Bible references that allude to the concept — John the Baptist and Elijah, for example — which make you wonder whether reincarnation was really as alien to early Christianity as we've been led to believe...

So why get rid of it? Well, one contentious view could be that it was about control... If you tell people they've got one life, and then they're going to stand before God and be judged, you've got a pretty effective behavioural management system. Be good and you go to heaven. Be bad and you go down to the fires of hell. Not for a few years. Not until you've learnt your lesson. Forever. That's a pretty serious carrot and stick.

Now throw reincarnation into the mix and the whole thing gets far less frightening. "Don't worry, you can act like a complete ass in this life and still have another go."  And another. And another. Maybe you'll get it right next time. Maybe not. There's no great rush. No final judgement waiting at the end of the road. Just another life...

By the sixth century the Christian authorities were apparently pushing back against ideas associated with Origen and the pre-existence of souls, with the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD becoming part of that process. Reincarnation didn't fit particularly well with one earthly life, one death, judgement and the promise of eternal salvation.

So was reincarnation rejected because it was wrong? Or because it was inconvenient? Hmm. It's a good question.

If you can persuade people that this is your one and only life, that God is watching your every move, and that what happens after death depends upon how you behave in this one life, you've got a remarkably powerful way of shaping human behaviour...

Infidelity and betrayal

One of the recurring and poignant themes in various incarnations I explore in my novel Before We Were Us is the subject of  infidelity and betrayal. This seems to be a widespread and recurring theme in relationships, globally and historically, and despite promising to do otherwise, couples often fall foul of this all-too-common aspect of relationship life.

How many people admit to cheating?

An Ipsos survey in the UK asked the question “have you ever been unfaithful to a partner” 

• Men: 41%

• Women: 40%

There is another uncomfortable question - whether the person you think is your father actually is.

In a study of 396 families in Nuevo León, Mexico, researchers estimated that around 11.8% of children had been fathered by someone other than the man recorded as their legal father.

So, if a high percentage of people admit to having an affair, and one study found that nearly one in eight children in a Mexican population had a different biological father from the man who believed he was their father, just how faithful are we really? Or not...

What exactly are we promising when we promise monogamy — sexual exclusivity, emotional exclusivity, biological certainty, or all three? 

And like the characters in my novel, who fall into the temptation of the infidelity pattern, what causes it? Is it the instinct to breed and spread our genes more broadly, or do humans have more complex reasons for straying away from their agreed monogamous partnership? Lack of attention. Losing each other in the chaos and bustle of life. Loss of ‘romance and magic’. Incompatible libidos. A wish for adventure or danger. Feeling unloved or neglected.

Or is it simply that humans are not particularly good at resisting temptation in the face of being offered a temporary good time?

We can love somebody, promise them our loyalty, build a life together and genuinely mean every word of it — and still find ourselves attracted to someone else. That is a reality for most of the population, but for many people something tips that natural phenomenon of attraction at a distance over into action that leads to betrayal. Infidelity may be a losing battle against instinct, or it could be something much more complicated than that. 

The question is, if we know how much risk and pain betrayal can cause, why do we humans keep doing it?

Did Rome Invent Christianity?

The idea that the Romans invented Christianity sounds like one of those theories that sounds completely bonkers — until you start looking at some of the circumstances surrounding the birth of the religion.

Jesus is said to have lived and preached in the early first century. But the Gospels weren't written while he was wandering around Galilee. Mark is generally dated to around 65–75 AD, with Matthew and Luke appearing later and John later still. And here's another interesting detail: the Gospels themselves don't actually name their authors. The names Matthew, Mark, Luke and John come from early Christian tradition.

Meanwhile, Judea was a powder keg. The Jewish revolt against Rome began in 66 AD. Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD and the Temple smashed. Rome had a serious problem on its hands: a troublesome province, religious conflict, rebellion and people who were very unhappy about being ruled by an occupying power. A familiar scenario in various parts of today's modern world.

So here's the provocative bit. What if Rome didn't invent Jesus — but discovered that Christianity was potentially useful at settling everything down? Think about some of the central Christian teachings: love your enemies, turn the other cheek, forgive, don't seek revenge. That's a pretty interesting collection of ideas if you're trying to keep an empire under control.

But there are facts that challenge the theory that Rome invented Christianity. Paul's letters were already circulating in the middle of the first century, before the Gospels were written, and they show that the Jesus movement was already spreading. So the evidence doesn't fit neatly with the idea of Roman officials sitting in a room and deciding to manufacture a new religion from scratch.

Instead of thinking Rome created Christianity - which it likely didn't - did Rome discover that Christianity was useful? The religion survived. It spread. And eventually the Roman Empire embraced it. That's quite a journey: from a small, troublesome religious movement in a corner of the Empire to the religion of the Empire itself.

What interests me about it is we spend our lives carrying things we didn't consciously choose — beliefs, behaviours, fears, ideas about who we are, etc. The question is, who installed those beliefs in there — when and why?!

So no, the Romans didn't sit down one afternoon with an ampulla vini rubri — “a flask of red wine” — and invented Christianity.

But they may well have looked at a fledgling religion and thought:

“You know what? Maybe we could make use of this... More wine, Caesar?”

Does the Heart Have a

Mind of Its Own?

“One eye yet looks on thee,
But with my heart the other eye doth see.”

— Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida

We tend to label the heart as being basically a pump — hopefully one that reliably keeps working day and night for decades, but nevertheless essentially a pump that moves blood, oxygen and bodily essentials around the arteries and veins. But lately there are signs we might be missing something about it — that the heart may well have its own cognitive intelligence.

So it's not just the brain telling the heart what to do — pump faster, pump slower, etc. The heart itself, it appears, may actually be way more involved in directing our interpretations and responses to life in the real sense.

Apparently the heart has its own nervous system, with networks of neurons capable of processing information. It doesn't just sit there happily pumping away and waiting for instructions from the brain. It senses, responds, regulates and communicates, streaming information back to the brain. The conversation between heart and brain appears to be continuous and two-way; indications from recent research are increasingly showing how signals from the heart can influence perception, emotion, cognition and even aspects of consciousness. Let's give it the title - Emotional Intelligence! Ta-dah!

We have spent thousands of years talking about the heart as though it knows things.

“My heart tells me.”

“I knew in my heart.”

“My heart says yes, but my head says no.”

We normally treat that as poetic language. But what if some of those ancient instincts weren't entirely wrong?

What if the brain is the great analytical computer we imagine it to be, while the heart is doing something entirely different? What if the heart processes information emotionally rather than logically? What if it has its own version of intelligence — not the ability to solve a crossword or calculate the square root of 937, but an ability to recognise, respond and influence us without asking permission from the conscious mind?

What if that strange thing we call a feeling in our chest, falling in love, fear, excitement or dread isn't entirely “in our heads” at all? What if the brain and heart are two different information-processing systems, constantly talking to each other, with neither having quite the authority we assume?

Should we follow the head or the heart? — that is the question!