In the beginning was the story and the story was what connected us.

It’s the telling of a story from one person to the next that passes on all the knowledge, information and wisdom from one generation to another. We don’t relate to each other in facts, but in our own experience to the story being told.

When we can plug into the story being expressed, we share a responsibility with the storyteller to add our chapter to it. We recognize this story is what all of us can plug into…

and why it needs to be defended.

A story that binds people together also has the power to bind other people from speaking.

When we talk about dehumanizing another person, what we’re really talking about is taking away their narrative. We reduce them to nothing more than their physical makeup and disregard everything else.

That’s why early civilizations knew if you wanted to completely conquer another group, you burned their libraries.

Erased their stories.

Take them out of existence to never be remembered again.

However, sometimes the story goes wrong. It takes a twist we weren’t expecting… or wanting… and then we have to take it upon ourselves to change it. Reclaim it.

Other times, the story surprises us. It takes us down a path we would’ve never gone with on our own.

It teaches us.

It guides us.

It shows us what it means to be human.

We can feel so small compared to the grand scale of the universe, until we remember—we are not part of the universe, but the universe reflecting on itself, telling its own story.