Stories Are A Scary Power

It's easy to fall into what you think you know. Some stories have been with us for so long that we don't even remember that they are just stories. None of us would admit that even as grown-ups, we still base most of our lives on fairy tales. But it’s true.

Fairy tales occupy a large space in our lives. Considering how much money grown-up people will spend on fantasy books, fandom-related merchandise, and games, it becomes very obvious that fairy tales run the world.

In fact, whenever you tell yourself that you “do not believe in fairy tales” or that something “is true”, you are just telling yourself another story. Much as you’d like to believe that your thoughts and decisions are based on reason, they’re mostly guided by the stories you believe in.

You don’t really have a choice about it.

Our brains are made that way.

We don't really care about facts until they come with a compelling story.

Ask any data scientist and they will tell you that getting the data is only a tiny fraction of getting the message across. Ask any scientist, for that matter, and they will tell you that how the paper is written is as important, or even more important, than the science in the paper.

Sure, if the science is crap, other scientists will debunk the story. But even if they do, if the story was good, it will probably already have left the confines of the scientific database and run rampant on the internet. There, it will live for decades and decades, repeated and retold, until nobody remembers that it was just a story.

We remember what comes packed into a Pixar movie much more than what comes in a legal text.

That's what a lot of fairy tales, legends and fables were meant to do in the first place. They were meant to make a message sink in. Sometimes, it was a useful message, sometimes it wasn't. Sometimes, someone got ahold of a whole book of fairy tales and made a religion out of it. Accidentally or on purpose.

Whatever the case may be, we’re suckers for compelling narratives. I realise this every time I want to buy more skincare products even though what I have works for me and my skin is fine. It’s hard to shake the story of “this magic potion will make you forever pretty”. Admen are good storytellers and someone paid them a ton of money to make sure I’d carry the story along.

Even though I know better, for a split second, I still believe that one more facial serum can only be beneficial. I want to believe it. Somehow.

Most of the time, I make it home without a purchase, though, so the story is fading.

It takes a lot of time, though. It also feels like it changes who I am because this story has been part of me for so long.

Changing an identity is hard.

When you touch on someone's beliefs, know that you are touching the part of them that is older than they are. You are touching their very central system. Their story.

You are touching something that people have gone to war over a million and one times throughout history.

Tread lightly. There is nothing more powerful than a story running rampant.