Suddenly, the wooly mammoth turned with a snort… its tusks swinging violently back and forth, its trunk searching for our scent. My mouth was dry. My palms sweaty. My heart thumped like the great beast itself. I watched with terror as Grog attacked from the flank and was swept away by the beast’s long tusks. Gnerk then bravely charged, but the beast reared on two legs and came down on top of him, stomping his small body into the ground. I cringed as I head Gnerk’s bones crunching, but seized the moment, the beast distracted, and ran my spear between the mammoth’s ribs and into its heart.
The ancient art of storytelling is to enhance the truth by embellishing some elements and leaving others out. The truth about the wooly mammoth is that we found the great beast half dead stuck in a bog. Grog was uninjured, and Gnert was not stomped into the ground. He was drunk, and when he saw the mammoth, he ran away smack into a tree, broke his wrist and needed to explain this to his insurance company. Only years later did he get stomped into the ground.
We like stories to be about us. We like stories we can relate to.
Carly Simon tells a story that says, “You’re So Vain, I’ll Bet You Think This Song Is About You…”
One of the hazards of blogging is that your clients might read personal or professional slight into a post/story that sounds familiar. Readers may relate too much. Let me state that while these posts are “about you”, they are not “about YOU.” I would like it if you thought they were. Like the mammoth story, some parts are added from other situations and others parts are deleted. However, they are still true.
But they are not about you. Or are they?