Katie Wandrey

“Stories help human communities to restore and build upon collective memory and library of knowledge.”

            A quote we looked at in class this week really struck me as a truth that many do not know. A lot of people today do not realize how important stories are and how stories are losing their importance every minute. Indigenous people, alike many other cultures, told stories to keep their culture alive. To keep it breathing and flourishing throughout the incoming generations. This perpetual flow of stories fueled the heart of people’s cultures which goes back to what the quote says about building upon “collective memory”. I believe in learning from the past and from mistakes because it builds character and dignity. When someone has the collective knowledge of their past, it makes that person even more of a person by having more souls behind their own, by having witnesses to the stories they tell and so on. Stories create conversation. Conversation creates awareness and maybe even advocation for telling the story again. They are the very core of humanity, without stories, how would we learn? How would we teach? How would we have fun and entertain ourselves and each other? Music, dance, literature, art, even sports and food would not exist without stories. Each of these aspects of human culture all circulate around the stories we tell and who we pass them down to. I believe in passing down traditions, specifically small things that make life a little bit easier. My father teaches me how to clean before painting and how his father would yell at him all the time to always clean before painting anything, every time he would have to paint in the house. He taught me about taping my ankles before my soccer games because it runs in the family to get busted up ankles. Many stories like these contain so many smaller and meaningful stories that I love to listen to and hope to pass down to future generations of my family.