Tyler Cowan is a professor of economics at George Mason University. He recently gave a talk at TED .com advising us to be suspicious of stories, specifically, stories that tell us the same things over and over again. He says we screw up by telling ourselves too many stories, we are easily seduced by stories. But if we are susceptible to stories perhaps it is because the stories we are attracted to the most are the ones too much like our own.
http://www.ted.com/talks/tyler_cowen_be_suspicious_of_stories.html?c=389069
Cowen is an economist, and so we can excuse the fact that he may know very little about the brain. He is after all telling a story as well. Daniel Kahneman knows a great deal about the brain, and the mind. In his TED talk "The Riddle of the Experience v. Memory" he explains this:
"Now, the remembering self is a storyteller. And that really starts with a basic response of our memories -- it starts immediately. We don't only tell stories when we set out to tell stories. Our memory tells us stories, that is, what we get to keep from our experiences is a story."
This is why we are so invested in our story, in our narrative. But we are not such good storytellers. This is true from a therapist point of view. We spend so much of the hour explaining the narrative, the "he did this, so I did that", that there is very little progress made in an hour long therapy session. We focus on telling our story and not looking at how we might develop the story, and perhaps in doing so rewrite the ending.
In this regard there is a lot we could learn from reading more science paper, where the abstract tells you every thing we need to know right in the beginning. Then, if we need more details we can wade through the pages to evidence.
Shakespeare was like this as well. If we recall a play like Romeo & Juliet it tells you everything you need to know right at the very beginning:
"Two households, both alike in dignity,
In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
It would seem that stories have value, to us or we would not be so good at them.
Do see the Daniel Kahneman talk to learn more about why
