We have already seen a growing emphasis on experience as an important element of context. Stories have become increasingly important to provide even broader context.  We are now on the cusp of a revival of narrative as an even more valuable context.

Narratives, at least in the way I will be using them, are stories that do not end – they persist indefinitely.

They are continuously unfolding, being shaped and filled in by the participants.

Stories are about plots and action while narratives are about people and potential.

Narratives are versatile.  Many different stories can nest within a broader narrative –

The role that narratives play Narratives provide stability and continuity in our lives. Narratives help to orient us.

Narratives have the potential to profoundly shape the future

Narratives also help participants construct meaning, purpose and identity for themselves.  They help to situate participants in a broader context and to build relationships across participants.

narratives help to ignite and nurture passion within us.  They help us to imagine new possibilities, develop confidence that we can act to create those possibilities and motivate us to overcome any obstacles that we face in achieving those possibilities.

The need for new narratives

Without new narratives, we will fall back onto older narratives

We desperately need new narratives that will provide alternatives to the older, more confining narratives.  These new narratives must embrace the fragmentation and change that give us more choice and options while helping to orient us and calling us to more fully realize the potential that we all have.

What we need are narratives of explorers, rather than narratives of true believers.  The narratives of explorers emphasize the opportunity to learn and grow by constantly framing new questions and embarking on quests to gain new insight through action. They focus on the possibilities to be discovered rather than the certainties to be recovered.

The deteriorating trust in all of our institutions, both commercial and governmental, is another indication that the absence of compelling institutional narratives undermines our ability to build long-term trust based relationships with our institutions.

Different levels of narratives

Narratives can be framed at the individual, institutional and society levels.

significant role in shaping our future.

Narratives cannot be crafted by PR departments.  They emerge out of, and are sustained by, daily practice. They require taking a long-term view of trajectories that extend well beyond the individual institution.

we need a compelling narrative that will help to focus our collective initiatives beyond any single institution.  To have real power, it must be a far-reaching narrative, one that helps to stimulate, explain and focus all of the initiatives within society.

The technological foundation of narratives

Digital technology provides all of us the ability to define and communicate narratives in rich and textured ways.

So, we increasingly have affordable and ubiquitous tools to help us communicate and enrich engaging narratives. We now need a new generation of leaders to put these tools to good use.

The bottom line

The role of a narrative is ultimately to attract, engage, motivate and call people to more fully achieve their potential.  Narratives represent a powerful pull mechanism that can shape the world around us. Who will craft these broader social narratives?  Who even understands the need and power of a new set of social narratives? What would such social narratives look like?

On a more systemic and global point of view, humanity has built its economies with a scarce monetary system called “money”. Scarce money provokes an incentive to “hunt” for… money. Such an activity requires the laying of “money traps” everywhere. Many, if not most, products on the market have this unique function of attracting this scarce money. We find no humanistic goal, no spiritual value, no healing function whatsoever, although these products do claim to serve a need. Therefore in many cases the making of a product comes with the making of a need. The products create the need, and not the opposite. To do so, the use of manipulation, temptation and lies to create the need have become a common and accepted practice, regardless the systemic consequences or the moral issues. This mechanism induced by a scarce monetary system leads to consumerist societies and consumption based economies. Supermarkets and TV commercials offer a good observation field. We see in a live way how lie and manipulation principles operate

Enter in any supermarket, observe and ask yourself how many products have a real humanistic, environmental or spiritual function? How many products provoke an immediate stimulus (pleasure), and how many trigger a genuine happiness?  You will likely conclude that humanity could thrive and have its highest needs served without most of the products aligned in the aisles. Also take a look at the packaging… the messages, the flashy colors, the subliminal words and images, the chosen spots in the store… Does it speak to your higher self or does it titillate your reptilian brain?

Watch TV commercials, and count the number of mind-numbing and debilitating messages. Observe how they manipulate, how they trigger the most basic drives in human psyche (hunger, sexual desire, etc) or invoke the highest spiritual values (freedom, self-realization…). This dynamics, now fed with more and more neuromarketing data, institutionalizes a societal practice of lies and manipulation. “This cream will make you look 20 years younger“, “this toothpaste will give you a Hollywood smile“, “this soap will make women happier“, “this shampoo will make you look like a star“, etc. Neither blaming and censoring the big brands, nor doing social activism against them will escape the whole system I just sketched. Only a global, distributed, systemic, innovative response can transcend it. Rather than becoming more terrifying players inside the current rules, why don’t we change the rules themselves and play a much funnier game?

Hence, the way we consider health and well-being can evolve. The way we define wealth can evolve. The way we trade with one another can evolve. The way we create economic ecosystems and currencies can evolve. Entrepreneurship can evolve. Information transparency can evolve. The whole game can evolve. It just takes a handful of committed visionary people who decide to play in another field and to show that they definitely have much more fun there.