VINCE! VINCE! VINCE! VINCE!

Vince!

You could use this picture for the front page: http://www.pineconefestival.com/Images/ClimbingWall1Full.jpg

It's got a woman climbing a climbing wall!

Martin_11_I

Ha, it looks like Simmons shares my distrust of stories about animals doing something that teaches us a valuable lesson. They just aren't very effective among adults, especially in a business setting.

Simmons also wrote, a little too late, that we shouldn't focus on the outcome too much while telling a story. That was a problem that I'm sure many of us had. There was the time limit (which wasn't really a big problem and added some degree of strategy, which was nice) and there were the 6 categories that Simmons mentions and to which we had originally planned on adhering. I'm not sure if these things actually negatively affected our storytelling. What do other people think? Let's see if anyone reads this extremely late blog post.

Overall, I've had to read some pretty terrible books in my college career and this was not one of them. Really, this was an easy read and, content-wise, was great. I can't help but feel that Simmons sees too much power in storytelling and her own methods, though.

Martin_10_I

Alright, this is really just an aside, but Simmons mentions how the blame culture will exist until our brains evolve. I was just reading an interview with the co-author of a book on evolutionary psychology. This part really fits:

DC: Evolutionary psychology portrays us as having impulses that took form long ago, in a very pre-modern context (say, 10,000 years ago), and now these impulses are sometimes rather ill-adapted to our contemporary world. For example, in a food-scarce environment, we became programmed to eat whenever we can; now, with food abounding in many parts of the world, this impulse creates the conditions for an obesity epidemic. Given that our world will likely continue changing at a rapid pace, are we doomed to have our impulses constantly playing catch up with our environment, and does that potentially doom us as a species?

SK: In fact, we’re not playing catch up; we’re stuck. For any evolutionary change to take place, the environment has to remain more or less constant for many generations, so that evolution can select the traits that are adaptive and eliminate those that are not. When the environment undergoes rapid change within the space of a generation or two, as it has been for the last couple of millennia, if not more, then evolution can’t happen because nature can’t determine which traits to select and which to eliminate. So they remain at a standstill. Our brain (and the rest of our body) are essentially frozen in time — stuck in the Stone Age.

One example of this is that when we watch a scary movie, we get scared, and when we watch porn we get turned on. We cry when someone dies in a movie. Our brain cannot tell the difference between what’s simulated and what’s real, because this distinction didn’t exist in the Stone Age.

Martin_10_I

Annette's big argument is lost on me. She is trying to convince us that storytelling is the greatest, most powerful tool you can ever have. I just don't really buy it. At least not the way she frames it.

Sure, I guess I sometimes tell stories, in a way, in order to try and influence people. But it's so much less conscious than what she is teaching. It's just the way we are taught to communicate with each other. Of course we all tell stories. Otherwise what would we talk about?

Maybe it's because there wasn't a lot of storytelling in my family. My family wasn't like that one woman's family where she learned about every ancestor back through slavery times. I have no idea what my ancestors were like. When stories were told, I probably just turned my head and "ugh"ed with boredom.

She uses Hitler as the obvious example of the power of storytelling, but I think that Hitler had some qualities that cannot be taught in a book. He just happened to be a very influential person. Stories worked for him in a way that they probably couldn't work for any of us.

I think that Annette is in love with storytelling and that's fine. She should be. That's what she does. The problem is that her reality of storytelling does not fit in with any reality that I've ever experienced.

Group 7 (?) Update

Martin Ryder, Kyle Hufford, and Matt Graf

I'm not sure if we're Group 7, but I think we can all agree that we're pretty much awesome.

Anyways, we haven't been blogging our group updates (oops), so here goes nothing.

We're working with Yorktown because they have proven to be very accommodating. Mary Watkins is an angel sent from Heaven. She put us in touch with two people working two different water-related programs.

First, there is the PE teacher Sandy Lounsbury. Yorktown was in a little trouble because they have an old building and there aren't enough water fountains. They came up with a creative compromise: sell water and gatorade to students during PE. Then they put all the profits back into Wellness programs. They were able to use the profits to buy a climbing wall for the students. When we visit her on Tuesday morning, Sandy will be able to give us tons of information about the program and should be able to provide students, as well, with signed release forms!

Then there is the art teacher Marcy Mackey. She was having trouble with the after school art club meetings. They were getting all jacked up on caffeine and sugar and things were getting out of control. So she banned pop. Now they can only bring water, gatorade, or fruit juice to meetings. Everything is working out much better now. The school also implemented this policy for the after school Homework Help program. We'll be talking with Marcy on Thursday afternoon.

So we have two programs at Yorktown to focus on. Does that make us awesome students? Well, I hate to answer since my opinion might be perceived as biased, but, yes, that does make us awesome students. At the very least. We'll take our virtual bows now. Thank you.

Martin_9_I

This chapter made me think about the various religious groups that come to campus.

The worst one was this guy who used to stand outside AJ during class changes with a big sign detailing the fiery pit in which we would all burn for eternity. The guy wasn't even trying to save anybody. His story was that we were all doomed because we weren't him and his friends. Not a very effective story. I don't think he's allowed back on campus.

On the other hand, there are the old guys who hand out the Old Testament and the Mormons. While they may seem a little annoying when you're in a hurry to get to class and they start bugging you, they're so much nicer than the hellfire guy. Have you ever stopped and chatted with them? They're really nice people. They are calm and lay out their story to you. Sure, they probably think that you're a terrible person who will burn in Hell, but they don't say it. That makes them much more effective.

Martin_8_I

People really don't know how to listen anymore. Aggressive listening is the name of the game. You listen long enough to get a general idea of what the other person is saying and then tear right into them. Because they are stupid for holding a viewpoint different from yours.

Fox News is particularly bad at this. Old white people may love Bill O'Reilly, but I can't stand him. He's a little bully yelling at everyone to make his point. Or Nancy Grace! Wow.

And there are people that I know in my life that are this way. My Uncle Randy is an idiot sometimes. He's a conservative Lutheran and holds all kinds of fun ideas about how all Muslims are terrorists. That kind of thing. You can't talk to him about these things because he absolutely refuses to listen and that pisses me off to the point where I just don't bother. He and my dad are terrible. They always end up arguing. Then again they are brothers.

I'm not always all that great of a listener myself. Oftentimes when I'm listening to a friend talk, I realize that I'm just waiting for them to say something that I can make a sarcastic comment about. I have to admit that I sometimes can't even pay attention to all of the stories in class. I'm not saying anything about the quality of the stories. It's more the quantity. After about three stories, my attention is anywhere else. Then everyone starts laughing and I wonder what funny thing the storyteller just said.

Martin_7_I

I am ever the cynic and it is pretty difficult for a person's story to get through to me. I think I'm just a product of where I grew up. I grew up in East Chicago, Indiana and if you know anything about Indiana politics, then you know how horribly corrupt EC politics have been. The Indiana Supreme Court had to finally step in and stop Mayor Robert Pastrick from stealing yet another election back in 2004. The corrupt jerk had been in office for 32 years, during which EC fell apart becoming a crime-ridden urban squalor.

It's not enough for somebody to talk about their good intentions. They've got to prove it through their actions. When it comes to politicians, I'm not even sure that good storytelling would work for me.

Martin-6-I

I'm trying to get an internship with the NAACP in order to finish off my Masters in Public Administration. This chapter kind of made me think about that.

Remember when the movie Crash came out? Everybody was going crazy about it. People were like, "Oh My God! There's still racism in this country! I never!"

Well, duh! Of course there's still racism! I couldn't believe how surprised people were. Did it really take a melodramatic movie to get people to look outside themselves for a second and recognize the obvious?

I guess the reason Crash was so successful was that it told a story. People can just ignore the protesters and minority leaders as being a bunch of whiners who don't know how to work hard and follow that American dream. All the Jesse Jackson sound bites in the world don't mean a thing. But when people watch a movie with sympathetic characters who are affected by racism, all of a sudden it becomes real for them.

The recent Jena 6 protests were great and all, but if you watched the news, there weren't many white people out in those crowds. If somebody was to frame the situation in an effective story, then maybe that would change. Otherwise, they're just hearing Nancy Grace yell at them about it.

Wellness Thingamajig

Has anyone else seen this Good Food Fight game (http://thegoodfoodfight.com/)? This is awesome. A great model for what we are hoping to achieve. And I should admit that I totally lost the game. The aiming is a little questionable.

Martin_5_I

Two years ago, I was watching late night TV when I decided to watch one of those Magic Bullet infomercials. The one where a group of people is standing around the table and the guy is making all kinds of crazy concoctions in ten seconds or less or something like that.

Well, I am not a really big blender fanatic. I don't know why. They just don't appeal to me in any real way. However, I wanted one of these Magic Bullets. Man, it was so awesome. It was making so many different things.

Why did I want it so bad?

It was because the infomercial was using story to make the Magic Bullet seem like the coolest thing ever. Every time the guy made something, that was a specific story. I didn't want to make pasta sauce, but if it only took 3 seconds, then maybe....

So now I own a Magic Bullet that's collecting dust in a kitchen cabinet. I have never used it to cook. I've mixed a few drinks in it, but I could have just used a blender to do that.

September 11

Alright, this may be a terrible idea, but I thought it would be cool if we all told 9/11 related stories tomorrow night. Where were you? How did it make you feel? Did it change you in any way? Blah blah blah. This could give us all a common theme and it would be cool to see where everyone goes with it. Of course, now that I think of it, this wouldn't really be fair to the international students, would it?

Martin_4_89

For some reason, when I was a kid and I was developing a sense of humor, I went in a very dry direction. Nowadays I don't even realize that I'm doing it. I often make jokes/comments without letting on with my facial expressions. This tends to really confuse people and I often hear, "I can never tell if you're being serious."

So, yeah, Simmons, you're right. Facial expressions are kind of important. But, seriously, if I say something ridiculous, then I'm probably not being serious. I'm probably joking. Why do I have to have a gigantic smile plastered on my face for some people to get that? It's kind of frustrating. If I was a character on a British comedy series, then it would be A-OK. But, alas, I am not. I have too healthy a set of teeth, for one thing.

Martin-1-1

Rushing out to buy this book made me realize once again how different this program is from every other program with which I've been involved. I used to spend around $400 on books when I was in Computer Science. Criminal Justice was about half that. Now I'm only having to buy one book. And it only costs $17 new at the BSU bookstore. That is very nice.

As someone who really does want to become a successful writer, it kind of frustrates me to read about how there are only a limited number of stories that one can tell. I want to be innovative. I want to find a new story that's never been told. Yet every single person out there says that its impossible. And a lot of those people are way more creative and inventive than I am. I guess I just have to settle for being original within the boundaries of six paradigms. Its either that or wait for the Singularity and hope that it really mixes things up.

That does make me think. What stories will transhumans tell? Will they still be stuck with the six stories? Is there anything we can do to escape? Let's say we develop the technology for consciousness uploading. Will humans who exist outside their physical bodies, inside of a computer, have new ways of looking at things? Or am I just looking at the situation the wrong way? Maybe I shouldn't feel so confined.