Tell me a story...

Terry Pratchett, the English novelist/satirist and creator of the comic fantasy novels Discworld said, that a good definition of humanity is "The ape that tells stories." 
And Adam Gopnik reviewing Jonathan Gottschall’s new book, The Storytelling Animal, makes the argument that compelling stories form the basis of our thoughts regarding just about everything.


 The narrative excitement of the great scientific theories, far from residing in their reassuring simplicity, lies in their similarly radical exclusions, their shocks: Everything in the whole universe is instantly attracting everything else! Everything! The big earth is dully pulling the apple and the apple is pluckily pulling on the earth. If you raced in your carriage as fast as you could and your friend raced in his carriage alongside yours as fast as he could, there would be absolutely no way for either of you to tell if you were both moving really fast or both just completely standing still! Really. No way at all. But—and here’s the weirdly special sequel, Relativity II—if you went really, really, really fast, so that you were almost moving at the speed of light, and your friend just stayed in his carriage, time would actually slow down all around you! You’d end up younger than he.  Or simply consider this story: locked inside the nucleus of each little invisible atom is a force so vast it can destroy an entire city!
And Gopnik goes on to add:

...Robin Dunbar’s “Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language,” from a few years back, for instance, had a thesis and a sharp one: that primates groom each other not to pick out nits, which do not really trouble them, but as a form of gossip, a way of exchanging social information—who grooms who for how long tells who’s up and who’s down. This primate grooming and the “gossip” that it entails actually produce brain-opiates; they’re our monkey junk. Since human groups are roughly three times larger than other primate groups, tactile gossip was no longer enough to produce the opiates that make social existence tolerable, even pleasant, for primates. We started talking as a way of gossiping and grooming each other at a remove, so to speak—and, indeed, to this day, almost all talk, before it is communication, is gossip and grooming: “He said what?!” “They fired who?” We have to invent very natural unnatural situations—classrooms where everyone faces front, usually under the threat of more or less brutal discipline—to get people to use language for learning outside the gossip-context. This thesis may or may not be true, but it has the excitement of a theory that surprises: it’s a good story.


A few years ago I was diagnosed with Diverticulitis. And as it turns out, there's a good story phenomenon attached to much of what is said about the causes and treatments of the disease. 

...Diverticulitis is a common digestive disease particularly found in the large intestine. Diverticulitis develops from diverticulosis, which involves the formation of pouches (diverticula) on the outside of the colon. Diverticulitis results if one of these diverticula becomes inflamed.

Foods such as seeds, nuts, and corn were, in the past, thought by many health care professionals to possibly aggravate diverticulitis. However, recent studies have found no evidence that suggests the avoidance of nuts and seeds prevents the progression of diverticulosis to an acute case of diverticulitis. Not only has this research shown that they do not appear to be aggravating the diverticulitis, but it appears that a higher intake of nuts and corn could in fact help to avoid diverticulitis in male adults...
and
The claim that a lack of dietary fiber, particularly non-soluble fiber (also known in older parlance as "roughage") predisposes individuals to diverticular disease was long accepted within the medical literature. However, the first study to specifically test the theory has found that:


"A high-fiber diet and increased frequency of bowel movements are associated with greater, rather than lower, prevalence of diverticulosis.


But it seems that a good story is difficult dislodge from people's perceptions, and despite all the research findings, whenever the topic of Diverticulitis comes up, I almost invariably hear people citing the nuts and seeds theory. 

Top Ten things I've learned in the process of (re)creating (with my five intrepid co-owners) a summer vacation house...

1.  Democracy is the worst form of government for those desirous of having their personal preferences prevail. 


2.  When those contracted to work on your house have (way) more customers who are spending (way) more money than you, you will be treated with the level of respect and consideration accorded by your dog to its fleas. 


3. All contractors and service professionals in the home construction trades speak a language in which common words and phrases take on entirely new and often contrary meanings:

Yes = No, or if you're lucky, maybe

One week =  Six to eight weeks.

I can do that = I've never done that before, but I'll give it a shot

I'll call you = I won't call you.

Send me an e-mail = Go ahead, waste your time cause I don't answer e-mail.

About a thousand dollars = Give or take five thousand dollars

I'll do it your way = I'll do it my way.

Thursday = Someday

Sunday-= Never

I can get you a better price = Cause I know you haven't got a clue

This is the best way to do it = This is where I make my biggest margins

It's your house, you tell me = It's my house, I'll tell you.

I'll send you an estimate = I haven't got the nerve to tell you that number to your face

It'll last forever = Unless it rains, or winter arrives

You can't do that = I make no money that way

That's not covered =  I make no money that way

I wouldn't do that if I were you = I make no money that way

Trust me = You sucker

I have a friend who can do that for you = He kicks back 10% to me for the referral

Gotta cancel, something came up = Gotta go work on more profitable project

You're gonna love it = What choice do you have?

I'll throw that in for nothing = It costs me nothing

I'll take care of it = You'll take care of it

Whenever you're ready = Whenever I can get around to it

4.  You will be charged $100 for an item you never heard of, and a week later you will see it at the hardware store selling for $8.95.

5.  You will agree to things the contractor says simply to avoid looking like the idiot he already knows you are.

6.  You will say "It's only money" every time you're thinking to yourself "Holy shit, that's a lot of money!"

7.  You will have days where you feel you'd be better off with a pride of disgruntled lions in a cage at the Bronx Zoo. 

8.  You will lose your faith in your own judgement to the point that you will agree to anything short of the amputation of an arm or leg.

9.  You may reconsider #8 if you can start collecting disability insurance to help cover outstanding construction bills.

10. You will start a blog as a pressure release valve, and it won't work.