Paying attention to the overstory...

 This is the third part of our look at Malcom Gladwell's book Revenge of the Tipping Point. This part of his work mirrors what I always tell people: 

The story of place is always working in the background. You are in it, so you'd better be aware of it.

In fact, Gladwell says it like this: "Communities have their own stories, and those stories are contagious. Actually, the word story isn't quite right. A better word is overstory."

"An overstory is the upper layer of foliage in a forest, and the size and density and height of the overstory affect the behaviour and development of every species far below on the forest floor."

"The overstory is made up of things way up in the air, in many cases outside our awareness. We tend to forget about the overstory because we're so focused on the life going on in front of and around us. But overstories turn out to be really, really powerful."

Among the stories Gladwell tells to demonstrate the overstory in action is how the word "Holocaust" came to be widely used and understood and how the tide was turned for same sex marriage in the US. Both of these can be attributed not to the fight for rights or the actions of politicians, but to culture. And more specifically  -- to the impact of television.

I can attest to how that works. I moved to New Zealand at the end of 1983 to take up an internship. The biggest miniseries of that time was the first filming of Shogun in 1980.

In 1984 the series was shown in New Zealand and everything stopped as almost the entire country watched it on TV over five consecutive nights. The series was long enough that I started and finished knitting a sweater for my boyfriend of the time.

But the more important thing was that we had all participated in something at the same time. It coloured the conversation for weeks to come.

Sometimes the closed door makes for an open window

Gladwell quotes on of his sources quoting Scottish writer, Andrew Fletcher: "Let me make the songs of a nation and I care not who makes its laws."

This is exactly what happened when the legendary folk singer and activist Pete Seeger was blacklisted during the McCarthy era of the 1950s.

He was unable to find work in television and other commercial platforms, so he went into schools instead and generations were raised on songs like "If I Had a Hammer," "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" and "We Shall Overcome."

He became a leading voice for sweeping protests that happened during the 1960s. As Gladwell says: "That's what storytellers can do. They can change the overstory."

 But by far the most intriguing thing about overstories changing is the most people don't see the change coming.

It is like sea change. You can see the tsunami when it is on you, but the start of it happened long before, deep in the ocean.

That's why continuing to spread the stories we want to live into is vitally important in times like these.

Never stop telling the future you want to see. 

Part of being a Story Activist is to look for and uplift the stories that will help us be better humans together.

I hope you think about this role I'm offering you. If more of us decided to practice more kindness or more understanding or more peace for just one day a week, there will be more kindness, understanding and peace in the world.