3 reasons why storytelling is the world’s most powerful force

October 19, 2011 

Surely you’ve noticed that storytelling has become a business sensation.

You can barely watch advertising campaigns these days without being continuously introduced to new characters, company mascots, narratives and other building blocks of story. That’s to say nothing of the storytelling that takes place at sales pitches, shareholder meetings, product launches, IPO road shows, management retreats, company rallies and other gatherings where attempts are made to positively influence internal and external constituencies.The biggest, richest, smartest companies get it. They’ve figured out that there is no bigger force in this world than storytelling.That’s a big claim, but I can back it up with just a few examples of how thoroughly storytelling deploys itself in our lives.

1. What is the most abiding and influential presence in most people’s lives? It’s called religion. Billions of people the world over have dedicated themselves (to varying degrees) to a religious faith or spiritual doctrine. And what is sitting at the center of the world’s major and minor religions? A book. It might be The Bible, Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, Bodhisattva, I Ching, the Book of Mormon. The list goes on. It’s not a stretch to say these scriptures upon which the religions are based are, at their core, giant compilations of allegories, parables, metaphors, vignettes and all manner of stories about mankind’s relationship to a higher power. What would religion be without story? Does a god exist without a creation story or some other relevant tale?
2. Entire cultures and societies are built upon and undergirded by stories. What does it mean to the Jews to be the Chosen People? What does it mean to Persians to be associated with Mesopotamia and the Cradle of Civilization? How could the French psyche survive if its perception as the planet’s most epicurean people were to somehow be banished? One of the principal forces within any culture or society is government. Think about the narratives governments continually feed their people to sustain their own interests and keep their power structure entrenched. What narratives do you think are currently at play in China with its expectations to reclaim the mantle as the world’s dominant people? What narratives keep the people of India and Pakistan poised on the brink of nuclear exchange, or the Palestinians and Jews locked in eternal warfare? Just try arguing in a crowd of Americans that the United States is not the world’s greatest country. This is such a fixed mental edifice supported by so many stories of national piety, achievement and heroism that one can barely fathom its deconstruction.
3. Then there’s our personal narratives – the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what our relationship is to those around us. To say anything less than we create our own reality is sheer folly. Our heads teem with stories that drive our behavior in ways we rarely take time to notice. Whether overtly or subliminally we are constantly writing our personal narratives. These narratives shape our self-image. Positive narratives can drive us to astounding successes. Negative narratives can destroy by driving us to the depths of depression and self-loathing.

Be careful what you think. Be careful what you say. It is all part of a universal storytelling mosaic upon which the very nature of reality depends.

Fat Chance

http://www.logotv.com/video/episode-2-season-1-fat/1666459/playlist.jhtml

Fat Chance

The First Cycle of Irish Storytelling

This is known as the Stone of Destiny, and was frequently mentioned in the medieval Irish romance. The belief is that when the feet of rightful kings rested on it the stone would roar for joy. In myth, the Tuatha De Danann first brought the stone to Ireland.

According to tradition the stone became the famous Stone of Scone on which the Scottish kings were crowned at Scone, near Perth. It was removed by Edward I, in 1296, and taken to Westminister Abbey, in London, being placed under the chair of St. Edward. It was stolen by the Scottish Nationalists on Christmas Eve of 1950, but was recovered and returned in February, 1952.

The stone is also known as the Tanist Stone or Jacob's Stone. A.G.H.

Tuatha Dé Danann
In Irish-Celtic mythology, the Tuatha Dé Danann ("People of the goddess Danu") are the Irish race of gods, founded by the goddess Danu. These gods, who originally lived on 'the islands in the west', had perfected the use of magic. They traveled on a big cloud to the land that later would be called Ireland and settled there.

Shortly after their arrival they defeated the Firbolg at the first battle of Mag Tuireadh. In the second battle of Mag Tuireadh they fought and conquered the Fomorians, a race of giants who were the primordial inhabitants of Ireland. The Tuatha Dé dealt more subtly with the Fomorians than with the Firbolg, and gave them the province of Connacht. There was also some marrying between the two races.

The Tuatha Dé themselves were later driven to the underworld by the Milesians, the people of the fabulous spanish king Milesius. There they still live as invisible beings and are known as the Aes sidhe. In a just battle, they will fight beside mortals. When they fight, they go armed with lances of blue flame and shields of pure white.

Important members are of the Tuatha Dé are: Dagda, Brigid, Nuada, Lugh, Dian Cecht, Ogma, and Lir. The goddess Danu can also be identified with the Welsh goddess Don.

The Epic of the Tuatha Dé Danann is the first Cycle of Irish storytelling.

Father Drinkin’ Part One….

Being Irish, there seems to be a stigma of alcoholism in the blood, and once at a funeral, I heard the priest refer to it as “The Irish Disease…” I think I was deeply offended, but then, my drinking problem wasn’t a problem for me, just for everybody else.

I never really took to firewater, the hard liquor though I tried all of them, but I do remember my first year in college and we had a tequila shot drinking contest  - my roommate was an alcoholic by age 18, I was just starting my career, and I was seeing TRIPLE. I sat down at the piano and played the same song over and over again. It was either 96 Tears or Heart and Soul since those are the only two songs I know.

From there, I got ‘polluted to the eyeballs,’ “three sheets to the winds,” f*&^%ked up, probably every weekend, like good American teenagers in college. We specialized in hangover cures of aspirin and Slurpees and burritos and understanding what DEATH feels like.

However, being Irish, and knowing where this behavior ends, usually with a funeral at somebody’s premature death, I knew I would have to overcome this with ‘self mastery,’ and yet, self mastery eluded me.

Here’s how I started trying to stop drinking. An alcoholic counselor told me it takes a full 90 days to detoxify the blood. Alcoholism is actually a blood disease. The blood is like a tape recorder, and once fed this high sugar intoxicant, it craves it more and more until you have a full blown alcoholic who just can’t stop drinking.

As my mother always said, “One drop and you are an alcoholic!”

To which of course, her children had to go and test that theory. My mother, Rose Francis Veronica Gallagher Boyle, never drank a drop of alcohol in her life. Maybe she took a sip somewhere, but I never saw it. She was the classic teetotaler.

Her father drank and when he drank, my grandmother, Catherine Feeley Gallagher, had the priest come to the house and make him take the Pledge. Apparently this was akin to an exorcism, but catholic priests in Jersey City in the early 1900s made home visits to make alcoholic dads take the Pledge. I suppose it involved saying the Rosary two hundred times in a row.

So, James Gallagher generally abstained from drinking or face the wrath of Catherine, his wife, and all was well, until one day he decided to visit the Auld Sod, from whence he came, and took an airplane to County Lietrem, Ireland to visit his kin.

When he returned, it was apparent he had been on a bender, since they served drinks on the plane, and of course, in the pubs of Ireland, where they drink Jameson’s Irish Whiskey like water. I think my grandmother called the priest again for another round of Rosary and psychological warfare until he was again, sober.

But the specter of alcohol did not end there. The spirits haunted my mother when she married my dad, Matty Boyle, who likewise came from a hard drinking Irish Catholic family and when they married, ‘Nana’ or Catherine Gallagher took all the booze they bought for the wedding reception and poured it down the toilet.

Eyes rolled as the Boyle family welcomed the new bride, the new teetotalling, snobby, prudish, Rose Frankie Gallagher into the family, a family she would keep at arms length since she disdained their drinking.

But, the spirits haunted Matty Boyle and after his Navy accident and head trauma, he liked his beer. Being a diabetic and suffering headaches,
 
beer was his medicine, and his downfall, and he died of heart attack at age 62.

So, I knew I didn’t want to be an alcoholic when I grew up. And, when I found myself unable to ‘stop’ I was pretty worried, and tried to detox and abstain for 90 days.

Day One….

Day Two…

Day One….

Day Two…

Day Three!

Day One…

And this how it went. Until I got myself on Prozac and that was the turning point. I weaned myself off of alcohol, and no longer crave the spirits. I still drink, but only wine, and an occasional beer. No firewater. I drink a lot of water. I meditate and do yoga. I steer clear of drinkers and drunken culture. My life became incredibly boring as reality is fairly boring unless you light up like a Christmas tree all the time.

And, yet, I found a new satisfaction: Inner Peace. Good Health. Intellectual Pursuits. Success…Money….Love, all those things that drunks avoid. They avoid them because they are hard to get. Drinking is easy…dying is easy, living is hard.

Part Two
So, family crisis abated, but one member is in the drunk tank, and another one should be. 
Why people cave to alcoholism is simple.


It is a blood disease, and the blood is like a tape recorder, and whatever you feed it, it craves, so once people start drinking, they cannot stop.  Unfortunately, most people do not understand this, and think this is a matter of 'free will.'   So, the adage by Rose "Frankie" Boyle of "One drop and you are an alcoholic," is actually true, at least genetically for Irish people. And, yet, there's a way to go.


For one, thing if you detox for 90 days, alcohol leaves your blood and the cravings stop. Your liver will heal. You will be 'normal,' once again, and may even resume drinking, but must be extremely vigilant about it and never drink more than two. And, stay away from Firewater - Firewater is the reason the Indians no longer control America. White people didn't just move in and buy up all the real estate - they gave them Firewater, and Native Americans have the same 'sensitivity' to alcohol that Irish people do, and with the same results. 

So, what have we learned?
Drink and Die?
or here's my favorite...
"Why do I drink?"
"I drink to forget!"
"What am I trying to forget?"
"...That I drink!..."

Another 12 steps to stop drinking (alcohol)

1. Make a determination to stop or slow down your drinking
2. Get a date book or calendar and mark day one for the day you want to start and stop drinking…
3. try cold turkey and see how long you go, marking the days.
4. Start again with Day One.
5. Get a prescription for antidepressants.
6. You may also need tranquilizers
7. take a yoga class or study meditation
8. If you don’t know how to meditate, close your eyes, take deep breaths and count backwards from 100.
9. drink only beer and wine if pressured by friends and family
10. do not mix wine and beer, one or the other.
11. day one, start again, practice makes perfect
12. day two, day three, day one, start again

It takes 90 days to detoxify from alcohol. It is a blood disease.

Cemetary for Grandmother, Grandfather Gallagher, Kay and Hughie Tumulty seen in this video in Jersey City NJ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUT07eZoXPw

 I don't know if it is the same one...

Is he related to us? Barack O'Bama

DUBLIN – He downed a pint of Guinness with a distant cousin and checked out centuries-old parish records tracing his family to Ireland. From the tiny village of Moneygall to a huge, cheering crowd in Dublin, President Barack Obama opened his four-nation trip through Europe on Monday with an unlikely homecoming far removed from the grinding politics of Washington and the world.

"My name is Barack Obama, of the Moneygall Obamas, and I've come home to find the apostrophe we lost somewhere along the way," a clearly tickled Obama — make that O'Bama — told the overflow throng at Dublin's College Green with his wife, Michelle, right by him. "We feel very much at home."

Obama's feel-good indulgence in Ireland came at the start of a four-country, six-day trip that is bound to get into stickier matters as he goes. The only hitch on day one was the threat of a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland that led the president to leave Ireland without even a night's stay, as he planned to move on to England on Monday night.

A high point was a helicopter jaunt to Moneygall, population 350 give or take it, where the president's great-great-great grandfather, Falmouth Kearney, was born and where thousands congregated to welcome the United States' first black president home. Obama met there with his nearest Irish relative, 26-year-old accountant Henry Healy, and they stopped in at Ollie's Bar for a Guinness.

It was a moment and a pint to savor. To the approval of the pub crowd and people all across Ireland watching on television, Obama downed the full pint in four slurps and came away with a foam mustache.

"The president actually killed his pint! He gets my vote," said Christy O'Sullivan, an Irish government clerical worker taking a long lunch break to watch live TV footage of Obama's visit. "He's the first president I've actually seen drink the black stuff like he's not ashamed of something."

An Irish link is good news for any American politician trying to connect with voters, and particularly for one who's been dogged by questions about whether he was even born in the United States. By some estimates, 35-40 million Americans trace their ancestry to Ireland. While Ireland, population 4.5 million, is a relatively small player on the world stage, this nation roughly the size of West Virginia has been a popular stopping point for modern American presidents ever since John F. Kennedy came in 1963.

For Obama, it was a day reminiscent of the campaign season when candidate Obama was greeted by adoring crowds and the president milked it for all it was worth. He spoke enthusiastically Monday of "the bonds of affection" between the United States and Ireland. "There's always been a little green behind the red, white and blue," he said to cheers in Dublin.

It wasn't until the 2008 presidential campaign that Obama discovered he had Irish roots, when a priest of the local Anglican church, Canon Stephen Neill, located the family's baptismal records and established the connection. Falmouth Kearney, who immigrated to the United States in 1850 at the age of 19, is a great-grandfather of Obama on his Kansas-born mother's side. His father was born in Kenya.

In Moneygall, 14-year-old Grainne Ryan scrawled "Obama" and drew a shamrock on her cheeks with eyeliner. Thirty-one-year-old Tara Morris pronounced herself "star-struck," a sentiment that appeared to be shared by many in a country that could use a boost as it weathers a steep economic downturn after its boom years as the Celtic Tiger.

Michelle Obama, for her part, drank her full half-pint and then got behind the bar herself to serve Moneygall's parish priest, the Rev. Joe Kennedy.

The president said the brew somehow tasted better in Ireland than in America. And, by the same token, the crowds here were by far even enthusiastic than those greeting him back home of late.

After overnighting in London at the U.S. ambassador's residence, the Obamas will enjoy the rarified pomp of a state dinner and sleepover at Buckingham Palace, with Queen Elizabeth II as host. But Obama also will confront difficult problems as he moves on to England and then France and Poland.

In advance of his arrival in London, Obama announced the formation of a new joint U.S.-British national security council designed to allow the two countries to work more closely together and share intelligence on long-term security challenges, particularly in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

British Prime Minster David Cameron said there were plenty of challenges to discuss.

"We've got some proper, very long talks, discussions about Libya, Afghanistan, security issues and also prosperity," Cameron told Britain's ITV. "The other big concern Barack and I have is making sure there are more jobs for our people, so getting trade going, making sure the economy's moving, dealing with our debts and deficits."

In Ireland, Obama said the success of the Northern Ireland peace agreement "speaks to the possibility of peace" in other world trouble spots.

His journey began with an overnight flight from Washington aboard Air Force One. The president and first lady met Ireland's President Mary McAleese at her official residence, and Obama participated in a tree planting ceremony as children rang a peace bell marking the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday accord. 

Obama then met the prime minister, Edna Kenny, and told him: "For the United States, Ireland carries a blood link with us."

Thousands of people waited hours to hear Obama speak in Dublin, and many more were turned away as the scene neared dangerously overflow conditions. The president sought to endear himself to the locals by speaking some phrases in Gaelic, including his campaign slogan of "Yes we can."

After his time in England, Obama will travel to Deauville, France, to meet with the heads of leading industrial nations, before ending his Europe trip with a visit to Poland, a strategically important Central European ally.

___

The Nail, the legend, cont...

King Niel and the Oral Tradition straight from YOUTUBE

Irish history with Pat Flannery. This was filmed 7/2/07. Pat continues on the theme of the history of the O'Neill with one of their greatest ancestors, Niall Noigíallach, better known as "Niall of the Nine Hostages." The O'Neill theme will culminate with a talk on "The Flight of the Earls" in September (which will be the 400th aniversary of the event). Again, Monsignor O'Neill contributes to the lecture with his unique insight. For more about Pat, check his website - http://patflannery.com/index.htm

Here's the video...