Since the moment ancient humans began communicating with each other in meaningful ways, we’ve been storytellers. For our entire history, we’ve been trying to understand who we are as a species and what our role is in the greater narrative of existence, and our ability to tell stories has been central to that process. Our very survival has depended on it.

 

As social creatures, we rely on our ability to tell stories in order to help us convey our inner experiences to others. We can use them to examine our lives from different perspectives. To imagine possible explanations for situations we don’t understand. They help us infer the motivations of other people and explain their r