Listening to a story and listening to a piece of music, however, have interesting similarities and differences. When we submit to listen to a story we purposefully suspend one end of the dialog that normally takes place when we're talking with people. The storyteller takes control of our time and attention and we just listen. |
Storytelling captures an aspect of childhood experience when being told a story was a common ritual. It's a warm place for most of us and in some ways represents our first experience in really listening. |
Things we do and experience have resonance. It can die away quickly or last a long time; it can have a clear center frequency or a wide bandwidth; be loud, soft or ambiguous. The present is filled with past experience ringing in various ways and now is colored by this symphony of resonance. |