The Origin of Storytelling^©

 No one is certain how we come to love stories. It might have started with a primordial father’s desire of teaching his son how to catch a mammoth or other beast. Father Barok as you may imagine has no other way of teaching Boknoy this survival skill aside from vivid accounts of his experiences. You must understand that if Barok orders an overhead projector then, he has to wait, literally, thousand of years for the delivery. What with the kind of roads they had then. I also believe Stone Age computers have limited memory and are not capable of audiovisual presentation.

Storytelling therefore was the logical tool of transmitting knowledge before writing was discovered. Tall tales must have been a great commodity before; I can’t help admiring our ancestors’ selflessness – no one was greedy enough to apply for patent on tall tales, thus, today, million of braggarts are still using the tool freely.

          Boknoy, maybe at first was compelled to listen; but if he was fond of mammoth barbecue or hated ending up as a tiger’s meal, then he had to seek more “experience” from his clan members. What they considered at first as survival technique became an “instinctive pleasure” in the end; the subconscious might have labeled those informative stories that may prove handy in the future as something “pleasurable”.

          Thus at Primordial School, Inc. Boknoy had to take storytelling – it’s a required subject. Stone counting - the precursor of mathematics - was only an elective subject. I believe I could have graduated with honor at PSI; I love stories.

~ o ~ o ~ o ~ o ~

Marjonnel