Original subtitles

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The oral tradition of storytelling

is one of the primary building blocks of civilization.

In the early days, it was how all knowledge was passed

from one generation to another.

And that's what brought the aspect of continuity

to our lives as a species, the idea

that one generation passes its knowledge and information down

to the next through storytelling,

the idea that what I know about my ancestors comes

from the stories that I've been told from the time

I was a little boy.

Alex Haley talking about roots and his journey

of writing the novel "Roots"--

he used to talk about sitting on his grandmother's

Cynthia's porch in Henning, Tennessee,

and hearing the stories in the summer--

all of the old ladies in the family

would sit, and rock, and chew, and spit tobacco,

and they would tell the stories of the family.

And inevitably, those stories would

get to the original African.

They called him the old African, Kunta

Kinte, who one day was looking for wood to make

a drum for his younger brother, and was never seen or heard

from again.

And the importance of Kunta maintaining his identity

and maintaining his contact with who

he was enabled him to pass that story on to succeeding

generations.

When he came to this country, he was in chains,

and then he was able to pass on his personal story

to, first, his daughter Kizzy, and Kizzy passed that story

along to her son, Chicken George, and on and on

through the succeeding generations.

It's a powerful illustration of the nature of information

as it is passed orally.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

I think what makes the oral tradition of storytelling

unique to the human experience is the idea that it

is as old as it is, and that that's

where our contact and the nature of our communication with one

another was born.

It was born out of a need and necessity to communicate.

You can achieve the same thing through the art of written

storytelling, but there's an energetic

that is passed through the oral tradition that isn't present

necessarily in any other medium.

And that energetic has everything

to do with there being nothing required in order to enjoy it,

that there is nothing that one needs

to do to learn to perform in able to benefit

from the oral storyteller tradition.

You just have to be present.

You just have to be listening.

You just have to be paying attention.

So I think it's the nature of oral storyteller itself

as being something that requires no additional work on our part

that makes it so important to us, that makes it so unique.

Take the time, if you are able, to sit

with the oldest members of your family, and get their stories.

Have them tell you their stories so that they don't disappear.

The way this transference of knowledge,

and information, and lore works is that it is only at its most

successful when it is shared.

And in order to share a story, you

have to have contact with it.

You have to know that story.

And they say that a griot is like a tree,

and that all of the stories that a griot contains, knows, shares

are like the leaves of a great tree--

and that, when a storyteller dies,

that there is a mourning that we must pay attention

to because of the loss.

The only thing that mitigates that loss is the idea that we

have extracted as much as we can of the value

and the benefit of what that storyteller contained,

of what they embodied--

and that they have trained a successor, one

that will follow the griot traditions

and pass on the gifts of those stories

to the succeeding generations.

For me, a lot of the purpose of storytelling

is to remind us of who we are, and why we're here,

and what's important to us.

And that more than anything else is

what gets communicated in the sharing and the telling.

It's the idea that, as an audience member,

I can be the beneficiary of all of that knowledge, all

of that wisdom, all of that emotion--

that it is available to me by the simple act of showing

up and being present.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

The act of listening is active.

One might think that just sitting in listening

is a passive pursuit, but it's not.

Listening is an action.

It's an activity that one engages in,

because it requires--

not necessarily effort, but awareness.

And I think that's the difference

between being a lump on a log and a human being engaged

in a moment.

It's your awareness of where you are, and what you're doing,

and what the intention is.

Part of the storyteller's magic is the ability

to capture the attention and the imagination of the audience.

And we do that through so many different methods.

It's the ability to command one's attention,

command the attention of the other

through inflection, through movement, through gesture,

through silence.

Silence is an underutilized tool in communicating.

I've stood in front of a room full of people

like at a luncheon, where people were chattering, chattering,

chattering, chattering, chattering,

and for me, the most effective way to get

that room to quiet down is to simply stand still.

Sooner or later, the awareness begins

to move throughout the room.

Wait a minute.

We should be paying attention here.

And sure enough, all of those conversations die down,

and before I know it, I have the attention of the room.

And it's the stillness that I bring to that moment that

makes it possible.

So silence is a real powerful tool for communication.

And it's the journey of the storyteller

that we learn all of these tricks of the trade.

We learn all of these methods and methodologies

of capturing and holding the attention of the audience

long enough to deliver what it is we came to deliver.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

For me, being present has everything

to do with engaging my filter, filtering out

distraction, filtering out that which is not necessary for me--

all of the thoughts that one can bring to a moment.

Did I turn off the coffee pot this morning?

I wonder-- oh, I didn't start the load of laundry.

I was supposed to call my accountant back.

Is it bad news?

Is it good news?

All of these thoughts that, a million miles a second,

tend to permeate our mind--

the ability to filter them out and surrender

to any given moment--

that's what being in the moment looks and feels like to me--

just being able to get rid of all of the noise

all of the chatter.

Because we are always bringing something

to every moment, what I try to do--

I try and bring my attention to the moment.

And everything else seems to fade in the background.

It's the attention that you bring that--

where you find the value in any present time moment

that you want to engage with.

It's intention, attention and intention.

And I think that it is true for most of us

that we have the ability to focus our energy

and attention in a singular direction for at least

a few minutes at a time.

And if you can do it for a few seconds at a time,

you can do it for a few minutes at a time.

And if you can do it for a few minutes at a time,

you can do it for longer periods, through practice.

The key to cultivating awareness is

as simple as practicing noticing things.

There's so much that we are not aware of, that we

don't notice in our lives.

Awareness is the key to self-knowledge--

going back to those important qualities

that a good storyteller possesses, self-knowledge chief

among them.

There is an experience that we have all

had of standing and gazing up at the night

sky, and the sense of majesty that we

experience in that moment.

And by just noticing the heavens, and how sparkly

and infinite they are creates an a an awareness

that doesn't go away.

It's only enhanced every time you look up at the night sky.

So it's the ability.

I believe, to notice that really introduces us

to the concept of awareness.

That awareness is what we bring to these moments that

enhance our ability to be successful as a part

of a storytelling experience.