archaeology and the story

Archaeologists study the cultures of the past by examining the physical objects – from houses to cups to sacred relics – that people used in a given time and place. The archaeologist aggregates the data around these houses or cups or relics, and makes conclusions based on what the patterns suggest about what life was like. I like archaeology – partly because I like history, and partly because I like human beings and cultures. I like learning about what motivates people, and what worries them, and how they structure their lives.

Everyone is born into a particular time and place and world, and we assume that that’s just how it is. That’s how people talk; that’s what people believe; that’s the way people eat. But everything we experience that’s part of human culture is there because someone created it and put it in place. Everything.

Everything.
Every sidewalk. Every brick. Every rooftop.
Every belief. Every ritual. Every way of singing or talking or dancing.
Every custom, every norm, everything associated with how we live.

When an archaeologist is studying an ancient or distant culture, they are gathering data about something they don’t already know about. They’re not from there. The customs and norms and ways of signing or talking in that culture aren’t familiar to them. If the archaeologist can clear their own perception of assumptions or preconceptions, they can see the data with new eyes – and really see at least part of what that other culture was like.

When someone decides to look with new eyes at their life or some aspect of it, this kind of story work suggests zooming way out. Gather data. Pretend that you’re not the person you’re observing. Pretend you haven’t been there this whole time.

That’s why a story work story is in third person – he/she/they – rather than first person – I/we. When I examine my life or some aspect of it from a distance, even a little distance, to the extent I can clear my own assumptions or preconceptions, I can see the situation with more objectivity – and maybe I’ll be able to gain insights that I’ve been missing.

We tell a story about what we’re wondering about or going through – and tell it in the past, even if it’s happening right now, as if we’re looking back at something that’s already happened.

And then we can ask the questions that an archaeologist asks, like, What motivated this person in this situation? Or, What worried this person? Or, How did this person structure their life?

I can see the thing I’m struggling with from a different perspective. And that helps me have the ability to see it in a new way.

This is the magical thing that happens over and over in story work. We see our life as if it’s not ours, or as if we’re not stuck in it. We see it from a safe distance – and we can see patterns that we couldn’t see before.