How crafting stories keeps us safe, sane: Life Hacks by Charles Assisi

Building a narrative is a creative leap that only humans take. In a trying time, perhaps the best thing to do is to let them unfold.

Whatever may be the matter I wondered, as I picked up the phone to answer mum’s call. It was earlier than the usual hour at which we connect every night to chat about our day. When she heard my voice, she sounded surprised. “Oh! It’s you. I was trying to call someone else. I must wear my glasses,” she said, and hung up. I got back to work. All was well.

It wouldn’t be until a few minutes later that the gut said something didn’t sound right. I called my brother. It turned out mum had called him too, and offered the same story. We began to worry something was the matter. It was time to place a video call.

The visual that greeted my screen was a grainy one; her voice kept breaking up. She looked hopelessly vulnerable and lost. Things started to fall into place. Cyclone Tauktae was passing through Kerala. I could hear the wind howl. The power grid had snapped and a lone candle lit the place.

Amid a strict lockdown, she was alone. There was no way I, or anyone else, could get to her; no way that she could get to us. We spent a long while on the phone, talking about random things, until she felt better. This was as much about her as it was about us, her sons. I guess this is a feeling many of my vintage are familiar with: The helplessness of having to leave ageing parents to fend for themselves in a time of crisis.

After the storm passed, it was time to re-open the conversation: would she consider moving in with my brother or me, at least until the pandemic abated? She declined. Her position on this has stayed unchanged. While she respects our concern, she needs her space and independence, she says. Perhaps I will be able to wrap my head around this when I get to be as old as she is now.

What I couldn’t wrap my head around was why, when she felt vulnerable, she decided to make up a story instead of just calling me. This is a woman who never lies; who taught us to never lie. What prevented her from saying she was rattled, worried, uneasy?

Much thinking later, I am now veering around to the idea that she wasn’t lying. Instead, she was making a creative leap and crafting a story in her mind that would allow her to reach out.

And thinking up stories is what we humans are wired to do, especially when isolated or in distress. This is a subject that has been written about quite extensively by EO Wilson, the influential American biologist often called the Darwin of the 21st century. In his 2017 book The Origins of Creativity, Wilson attempts to break down how Man acquired this unique ability. After all, as he points out, many animals are intelligent, but only humans are creative.

As part of his exploration, Wilson talks about what happens when humans are deprived of human contact. In his case, when on solitary field trips to research ants, he developed an alter ego he would engage with and with whom he would discuss his findings.

“This person had no name, nor was it in any manner an independent entity (I wasn’t insane). My alter ego was, simply put, just a shift to a separate frame of mind,” he says. In other words, he needed to talk to someone. He needed someone to tell his stories to.

Which is why, since that episode, I’ve started to engage with my mother more deeply and prod her to speak a bit more. It turns out, she is a pretty damn good storyteller. And there are many narratives she has. Some have to do with what is happening now; others are from a past before I was born. There are parts that sound fantastical, and others that sound very real. Both types of narratives are riveting.

Perhaps this will be something we learn amid the pandemic. In a time when the most we can do for each other, often, is to listen, perhaps we will acknowledge the true value of doing that. And perhaps in listening we will learn to treasure tales that would otherwise have gone untold, from those who are yearning for their stories to be heard.