Jonathan Gottschall on the stories we tell ourselves
Dialogues with Richard Reeves
00:00
How to Know When You're in a Story
In your book you refer to stories as your necessary poison. What makes a story and how do I know that I'm in one or listening to one? You don't align yourself with Coleridge's famous quote about the willing suspension of disbelief. No matter where we go in the world, no matter when we go there, we always find the same amazing thing. These people tell stories. On the whole, their stories are exactly like ours. The same basic obsession, the round sex, and death, and power, and status, and etc. And the same basic structures. So what's a story? A story almost always has a character. They have some sort of problems, some
Transcript
Play full episode
