We really have a funny attitude towards stories in our society…

We treat them as

• Entertainment

• Fiction

• Myths (in the new meaning of the word)

We look down on religious stories and people believing in them. We label them as delusional and dogmatic. At the same time, we understand myths as fictional stories that have no bearing on the reality or truth…

We treat them as the opposite of truth.

But could it be that we are missing something?

Afterall, the stories of the great religious and spiritual traditions have and continue to shape cultures (including ours) for thousands and thousands of years.

How can something that has such a big influence be completely untrue..?

Could it be that we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater?

Could it be that that’s why we struggle to live meaningful lives that are full of engagement with the world and the inspiring people around us?

Could it be, that stories actually hold the key to living the heroic life..?

What We Are Missing…

I really find the mental gymnastics that our culture plays when it comes to stories fascinating…

On the one hand, we criticise religious institutions for using religious stories to control the people (see Marx above)…

On the other hand, we say that these stories are all just delusional fiction.

But which one is it? It cannot be both!

You cannot have something that simply has no bearing on reality and simultaneously use it to control billions of people.

Take a few examples: You can…

• use a weapon to force someone to give you their money

• play on people’s fears to make them give you money

• use advertisement to make them give you money

Do you see how these things are all very real and can all be used to control people in a very real way?

Why would it be any different for stories?

Are they even different than stories?

• If you don’t give me your money, I will shoot you and you will be dead…

• If you don’t invest early you won’t have any money in retirement…

• If you buy this, you will be happy.

All these are stories. Not very sophisticated ones. But very powerful ones. They are some of the core stories that drive our living at this point in time:

• force

• fear

• desire

Do you see how stories have power over us (even if they are not religious).

Do you see how that makes them real? How it makes them have an impact on the world?

Do you see, what you could gain, if you would truly understand what stories are..?

Everything is a Story…

Now, this is a bit of an overstatement.

A better expression would be: We perceive everything as a story.

This is one of the core claims that Jordan Peterson made in his 1999 book “Maps of Meaning”.

According to Peterson, you are always inhabiting a story…

This is what the illustration above describes.

You are always at a point A… And you always need to go to a point B.

How you get there, is the story.

This, according to Peterson, is how we perceive the world.

• You are trying to improve your work (→) to be promoted from your current position (point A) to a better one (point B)

• You are hungry (point A) and go to the fridge (→) to satisfy your hunger (point B)

• You are trying to overcome your current self (point A) through self-development (→) to become a better version of yourself (point B).

You see, this pattern fits basically everything we are doing…

But something is missing: something crucial.

The oval that surrounds our journey from A → B.

What is this about?

Stories Bridge the Known and the Unknown

The oval around the A → B represent the boundary between what is known and what is unknown…

According to Peterson, you are in the known – what he calls “Explored Territory” – when your plan (→) for getting from A to B works out. Everything is well. You get what you want.

But sometimes, something unexpected happens. Something that you did not expect crosses your path (→) as you are moving from A to B…

This is the moment when you cross the threshold from the known to the unknown: you enter into unexplored territory.

Now, your first reaction might be that this is something bad. But this does not have to be the case…

Everything that is unexpected is Positive, Negative, and Irrelevant for your – all at the same time. By definition, what surprises you is unexpected. And what is unexpected could be good, bad, and irrelevant for your progress towards your goal (B).

I call it “Schrodinger’s Relevance” based on the concept of Schrodinger’s Cat: before you look, anything that comes unexpectedly is positive, negative, and irrelevant all at the same time. Only when you look, will you know for sure…

This is why you have an orienting reflex. When you walk on the street and hear a loud sound, you stop and look what happened because a) you did not expect the sound and b) the sound could be good, bad, or irrelevant.

This is so important – so real – that evolution gave you this fundamental reflex that guides your attention to what is unexpected…

Just let that sink in.

This is all nice you say… But what does it have to do with stories?

Here is the kicker…

You walk the street.

SUDDENLY, you hear a LOUD BANG!

You get startled and stop dead in your tracks.

You turn around and see…

Well…

How the story continues depends on what you see.

Imagine it was just a construction worker who let a steel beam fall. Nobody got injured. Nothing broke. Just a loud bang. You turn around and continue your walk (to whatever point B you are currently going). Nothing interfered with your goal. The unexpected bang turn out to be wholly irrelevant for your current pursuit.

But what if you turn around and you see someone with a gun, shooting at people?

Suddenly, your world is transformed.

Geographically you are still in the same place, but without prior warning, the oval around your A → B dissolved in an instant. You are not in explored territory anymore. The plan you had to move from A to a better B just vanished.

You are in no man’s land, and you don’t know how to act.

Your story dissolves and you find yourself anxious, scared, and full of adrenaline…

Your body goes into hyperdrive and decides on fight or flight.

You find yourself dropped into chaos – unexplored territory – and now have to find a way of dealing with it…

This is why I think stories are so important. This is why I think we should start taking stories more serious again…

Not only do stories help us to construct stability when we move from A to B by outlining our plan (→) of how to do so.

But the greatest stories can also tell us how to act, when our story – our explored territory – dissolves in an instant and we drop into chaos…

Story & Meta-Story

Until now, we have talked about story…

The hero (you) is at point A and wants to get to point B. He makes use of his knowledge to make a plan (→) to make this happen.

But suddenly, chaos breaks loose. And the meta-story enters the picture…

Meta-Story is what it’s actually about.

It’s where the juice is…

It’s what grabs our attention, glues us to the screens of our TVs, and keeps us binge watching our favorite story from end to finish over and over again.

When you look at it from that perspective, it is never about the story itself. It’s never about the plan that our characters had…

…It’s about what they do when their plan is being blown to pieces. That’s what we are interested in:

How do you deal with it, when your plans are destroyed and you find yourself in chaos…

All the stories that you love are about this. Just think for a bit:

• Luke Skywalker on Tatooine (A), planning (→) to go to the academy (B) but being thrown into chaos when the empire kills his aunt and uncle (💥).

• Harry Potter living under the stairs (A), just wanting to get by B) without being made to miserable by the Dursleys (→). But suddenly, Hagrid tells him that his life has been a lie and that he is a Wizard (💥).

• Frodo Baggins (and Bilbo too), in the Shire (A) just wanting to live a comfortable life (B) by evading all trouble that brews outside the shire (→). But suddenly, Frodo finds himself in the possession of the one ring, being chased by the Nazgûl (💥)

I could go on with every single superhero, fantasy, and science fiction story under the sun… Try it yourself…

What is your favorite story? How does A, B, →, and 💥 map onto it?

What I am trying to bring across here is that all the big stories we tell and celebrate are about how the hero deals with being thrown out of his or her regular life into the chaos of the unknown.

This is what the meta-story is about.

This is what attracts us to stories of this kind.

And this is why you will always need a story…

Because sooner or later, you will be thrown into chaos…

And then you better know what it takes to be the hero…

Or you will find yourself forever lost in the depths of the abyss…

So… Let’s find out how stories can help you..

Why We Need Stories:

Becoming the Hero Yourself…

The quote above perfectly expresses what stories are about.

Stories (and myths) give us models for how to be heroically in the world.

They give us the images that show us how to act in the face of the challenges of life. And they don’t give us abstracted knowledge… They give us something that we can embody…

But why do we need stories for that? Why can’t we just learn from textbooks about how to be in the world..?

The answer to this question is more or less obvious. You already carry it around…

How many textbooks on how to live heroically have you read?

Chances are 0 (if you are not into Joseph Campbell and Peterson’s work…)

But how many movies about heros have you watched? How many books have your read? How often have you sat there, completely gripped by a story? How often have you felt excited after leaving the cinema or turning the last page of a good book. How often have you been inspired by your heros to go beyond yourself and become the hero yourself?

The problem with textbooks comes in two overlapping parts

1. Textbooks are boring…

2. …because they deal with what is already explicitly known.

Think about it. You can only have a text book – something that holds abstracted knowledge – when this knowledge was already mapped out by someone else. All the knowledge has basically been cut down and reduced to the essentials… It has been ripped from the context in which it was learned, so that you can apply it to your own context…

This is not a bad thing… Think about all the non-fiction stuff you have learned from… How far it has got you…

But it still has this fundamental problem…

Non-fiction presents you with knowledge that is already explicitly known.

It gives you the story that can already be put into abstract terms.

It gives you knowledge irrespective of embodied context.

But that’s exactly the kicker: we are embodied beings. And our richest knowledge does not lie within abstraction (although those are very powerful)…

The richest knowledge comes from a place that we cannot fully capture in words…

And that’s why we tell each other stories…

To learn the sub-text. To pick up on what you cannot learn from a textbook.

To learn how to deal with situations when your story turns into chaos.

To learn how to be a hero.

Let me ask you this…

Did you notice how mental health gets worse and worse, especially in the western world?

(Bear with me here, I’m going to bring it back to stories..!)

Did you notice how simultaneously we rely more and more on textbook knowledge and treat stories only as entertainment? Did you notice how we get better and better at dealing with what we already know, but are embarrassingly bad at dealing with situations in which our scientific story breaks down?

Just look at the political polarization we are facing right now. Look at the inability most people have to connect on a human level. Look at how everyone lives in their little story of the world. Almost fully removed from reality, but not willing to let the story dissolve and give rise to a better one.

Notice how people are afraid to be heroes…

Notice that precisely because of that, we need more people like you…

People who want to become heros!

So, if you made it till here, I do assume that you are one of those people who want to be heroic. Who wants to pick up the burden and provide something of value to your community…

So, how can you actually start doing this? How can you become a hero, by engaging with heroic stories?

The first step is to learn to appreciate the power of stories…

It turns out that stories grip us, because they tap into the most fundamental learning mechanisms that we as social animals have.

In your brain, you have something called mirror neurons. This is a special type of neuron that is activated both

1. When you do a specific action and

2. When you observe someone doing exactly that same action

These mirror neurons are super important for social learning – learning by observing others…

And guess what: Mirror Neurons are activated when watching movies or reading fiction.

Just let that sink in…

The same mechanism that allows you to learn from the people in your immediate environment…

…allows you to learn from the heroes of all ages – independent of them being fictional or real.

This is one of the reasons why stories are so powerful. They literally expand your opportunity for learning about how to be in the world by infinity. And even better. They get you out of the bubble in which you are living. Where you are only learning from the people around you. Stories open up your horizon to what it truly means to be a hero…

Stories achieve this by making use of one of the most powerful (maybe the only real) learning mechanism: metaphors…

When you engage with a story, you are sucked into a different world:

• The vast depths of space in Star Wars

• The magical castle of Hogwarts

• Or the desolation of Dune

But just because these worlds are fictional, doesn’t mean that they are unreal…

If that were the case, the worlds wouldn’t make sense…

But they make perfect sense.

This is the power of metaphor. By drawing from elements of your world (what J.R.R Tolkien called “primary world”) the storyteller is building a “secondary world” that is new and yet familiar. It is built of the same building blocks that your primary world is built on, and yet, it offers you something more – something magical.

It is exactly because of this similarity between the “real” world and the magical worlds that you can learn from stories.

When you (re-)learn the language of stories you gain the ability to learn from your heroes. You learn to let your mirror neurons get activated by the behavior of the characters in the story. You learn to see the metaphor in their action, and translate it into some meaningful insight for your own life…

Take the example of Harry Potter: What does Harry have to do to defeat Voldemort?

• Find the horcruxes

• Destroy them

• Die and be reborn

Now you might think “Well… Magic isn’t a thing so what the heck should I learn from this..?”.

But you are missing the point…

Like Harry, you are facing something bad – something evil in your life.

Like Harry, you are the hero trying to overcome this evil.

Like Harry, you need to figure out how to overcome this evil.

Like Harry, you need to weaken this evil.

Like Harry, some part of you is contributing to this evil…

…and you need to let go of this part, if really want to overcome the evil in your life…

…and become a force for the good!

This is what stories have to offer. They give you an insight into the eternal battles that we humans have to face.

• Good and Evil

• Light and Dark

• Love and Hate

It’s everywhere: Frodo vs Sauron, Luke vs Vader, Harry vs Voldemort, Paul Atreides vs the Harkonnens… The list never ends.

And because stories deal with such eternal themes, they are more true – and more powerful – than any textbook that you could ever read…

A good story helps you to see beyond the veil of the magical world and enter right at the heart of the characters living within the story.

This is how you activate your mirror neurons.

This is how you learn by metaphor.

Thi is how you become a true hero…

So, How to Actually Do This..?

Now that you understand why you need stories – if you want to live heroically, that is – it’s good to have a gameplan of how to go about it.

As I mentioned, good education about the power of stories is rare…

And so, I want to share with you what opened my eyes to stories, so that you can hopefully follow suit.

1. Learn About Stories

The first step is to further educate yourself about stories.

I have given you the basics. I hope I made you hungry. But this here is just not enough space to fully dive into details of what makes stories so powerful…

Therefore, it’s good to consider some material that goes further into depths:

• Jordan Peterson’s 2017 Maps of Meaning Lectures (click the link and scroll down to the 2017 lectures): This is what opened my eyes to stories. Peterson is a master in stories. As few people know, he wrote an actual textbook (Maps of Meaning; the book I was drawing from above) on how we perceive the world as a story. He brings together an incredible breadth and depth of knowledge of psychology and philosophy, and shows how stories hold some fundamental truths about what it means to be a human being. And he doesn’t just talk theory, but immediately applies this to stories like Pinocchio and Harry Potter, so that you can then go on and do it with the stories that call out to you…

• Joseph Campbell – The Power of Myth: Joseph Campbell is one of the other greats when it comes to stories and mythology. In this interview series, he explores what makes Myth so powerful, and why we are paying the price for having lost touch with the fundamental stories that tell us how to be human…

• Jean Shinoda Bolen – Goddesses in Everywoman and Gods in Everyman: Bolen investigates the archetypes (a concept that you will get to know in Peterson’s lectures) of (primarily) the Greek gods and how we can find them in ourselves and the people around them. These two are really great books to see the relationship between story/myth and our world. And particularly, to understand the other sex a bit better 😉

You don’t have to go through all of these of course. My recommendation is to start with the Peterson lectures and then take it from there…

2. Find Your Stories

Beyond just learning more about the power of stories, it is also important to start engaging more with stories. This is relatively easy…

1. Sit down

2. Make a list of stories that excited you in the past.

Don’t overcomplicate things. Chances are that a particular story immediately comes to mind when you do this small exercise. Stick with this one. Choose the one that you feel you want to re-engage with…

It doesn’t matter what type of story this is…

I would actually recommend starting with a classical children’s story…

The Disney movies come to mind.

But for me it’s The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (the book, not the movie!). You think a children’s book could not have any depth…

Well, I read it I don’t know how many times, spend 70+ reading it, and again that to analyse it. And I gave a 2h lecture on it at university…

The amount of wisdom that I gained from this story – the depths that I discovered – I cannot put into words… It’s really true:

Don’t judge a book by its cover…

3. Re-Engage With the Story

Once you have found a story that you want to re-engage with, just do so.

But this time, be open to the story. Don’t look for the things that I have talked about here. Just let the story be itself and unfold for you…

You need to give it time and respect.

I have written in The Art of Being and Taking Control Over Your Mind how you can practise openness and approach life through a more open lens… If you struggle with this while engaging with your story, I would recommend you read one of those or even both and do the practises that I write about there.

4. Repeat and Work Yourself Up

As you do this more and more, you will be able to go to deeper and deeper stories.

But don’t rush it. There really is no need to…

As I said, I have probably spent 150+ hours with the Neverending Story and I still have not exhausted it yet…

Remember that you are playing this for the long game…

Remember that you are doing this to become the hero we need!

Wrap Up.

So, now you know a bit more about stories.

I hope you make something of it.

I hope I could entice you into exploring the stories that call out to you.

I hope this, because we need it! We need you!

We need you to get in touch with the depths of knowledge that calls to you in the shape of the stories.

Don’t waste this. We can’t afford it.

Make the most of it.

And become the Hero we need!

Now it’s time to go and do!

Much success with it!

All the best,
Niklas