A sprinkling of story for a bucket of meaning
The connection between myth and meaningful communication
TLDR; The connection between myth and modern communication sheds light on how we might communicate more effectively with audiences today.
I’ve recently been consuming some of Sharon Blackie’s content around mythic story and Jungian psychology, which is bringing me back to my roots in many ways. You may be surprised to know that my bachelor’s degree isn’t in business or marketing or even communication — it’s in history. (Medieval and Renaissance European history, to be exact.)
But I didn’t start out as a history major. I started out as an environmental studies major. I was going to be a forest ranger when I grew up! … Until I realized I wasn’t very good at learning science in a classroom setting.
I had an existential crisis the summer after my freshman year at the University of Colorado at Boulder. And it was during this crisis that I found the book How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill, in the Boulder Bookstore.
This book changed the entire trajectory of my life.
It was the first time that I saw human history not as dates and names to memorize, but at stories.
I switched my major to history so I could immerse myself in more stories like the one Cahill told in his book.
Fast-forward to today, Sharon Blackie’s work is bringing back that same ravenous hunger for more stories.
Blackie is a psychologist, author and lecturer who has focused much of her career on mythology and Jungian archetypes. Her work is deeply narrative, and weaves seamlessly with the human relationship with the natural world.
To say it’s a departure from reading about communication would be an understatement. However, I feel a deep connection between the two worlds.
Myth (mythic story) is the primary way in which humans have understood our world and our own relationship to the world throughout time. Myth creates scaffolding for our understanding.
And story is how we have always communicated human to human.
In my mind, they are inextricably connected.
Myth is the stories we pass down to explain how we got here.
As I’m listening to Blackie’s lectures, reading her writing, and working through some of the exercises she shares, I’m struck by how much can be communicated through a myth — history, truth, relationships, purpose, location and environment (and our place in it), to name a few.
For example, she told the Irish myth of the Glas Gaibhnenn (Gloss Gavlen) — a magic cow that could give unlimited milk to anyone who brought a bucket. It was said this cow provided sustenance to all of Ireland. However, a woman wanted more milk than anyone else, so she came to the cow with a sieve. She filled bucket after bucket — and eventually, the cow’s milk ran dry. The Glas Gaibhnenn left Ireland, never to be seen again.
That story communicates the consequences of greed and reckless consumption, of respect for the gifts of nature, the moral responsibility of individuals to the community, and how blessings shouldn’t be taken for granted.
We get all of these messages from a few sentences about a magic cow.
Then, there are the 2,000 word “stories” written by modern marketers. I read one yesterday, for example, that started by talking about basketball and ended by talking about coming up with a messaging focus. It was interesting enough that I read the whole thing (stories get me every time!) — but by the end, I had this feeling of Ugh, I just spent 10 minutes of my busy day, and he could have easily communicated this (really good) framework in about 250-500 words, story included.
Now, to be clear, I’m not knocking longer content. It definitely has its place, and I personally enjoy writing it. My point in comparing these two stories is to show you that story-driven communication can be incredibly potent.
Audiences can squeeze a lot of meaning out of a single, concise story.
Storytelling in communication is powerful. It engages us like nothing else can. But it doesn’t have to be novel-length to get your point across to your audience.
Even a short story can have big impact.