Why Humans Are Hardwired to Live Inside Stories (Even When They’re Fake)

Over the last few years, I have spent many hours reading authors across history, philosophy, and theology. My focus has stayed primarily within Western thought, though I occasionally venture into other cultures when their stories and histories intersect with ours through shared socio-political and economic interactions. Tribes, states, nations, continents — none have ever existed in isolation.

Through my theological training and my reading of ancient biblical and extra-biblical texts, one truth has become increasingly clear: as a species, we invest deeply in story. And by story, I do not mean mere fiction. I mean the creative retelling of history — the imaginative shaping of memory that allows us to encounter the past through the voices of those who lived before us.

Ancient stories have become embedded in our language, our myths, our symbols. Philosophers still reach into Greek myth to extract meaning for modern life. Even figures like Moby Dick, Sisyphus, or Pinocchio continue to speak with fresh insight as each generation rediscovers them.

I often imagine our earliest ancestors gathered in family tribes around the fire in their primitive dwellings. Across generations, they would share stories of those who lived — and died — before them.
Stories of the hunter who slew the giant beast and fed the village.
Stories of warriors who met the wild men of an opposing tribe and protected their people from dangers unspoken.
Stories of tragic loss — the child who wandered too close to the dark forest and met the great wolf, or the season when famine struck, and the tribe blamed the gods for their suffering.

These stories kept collective memory alive. They taught lessons. They passed moral understanding from one generation to the next. Furthermore, they were the glue that held communities together.

Today, that role is often displaced. Media and modern narratives increasingly shape belief and identity, sometimes supplanting parental and cultural storytelling with engineered narratives of their own.

Yet a deep magic remains in a story told well. A good story lifts the listener into another reality, allowing us to share in events we never witnessed. Within the story, we encounter shared fears, joys, tragedies, victories — the universal experiences of being human. And through story, we travel to places we will never physically reach, where imagination constructs what reality cannot.

For me, science fiction played that role. Since childhood, I’ve been transported to planets and galaxies governed by laws completely unlike our own. Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Star Wars — these shaped my imagination profoundly. I even watched Star Trek on the morning of my wedding, before driving to the church. Looking back, I can see how these stories allowed me to dream of possibilities that were not available to me in the time and place of my birth. Such is the power of imagination.

And, amusingly, the communicator in Spock’s hand eventually became the device I use every day to speak to the world.

If fictional stories can do that, how much more powerful are the historical stories, myths, and legends rooted in our own cultures? These narratives can inspire extraordinary good — or lead us toward extraordinary tragedy. This is why I believe Homo sapiens may equally be called Homo Narrativus, the storytelling people.

We may no longer gather around the tribal fire pit, but the ancient instinct persists. You can still see it today — in the backyard, around the barbecue, with friends, laughter, and shared memory. The setting has changed; the storytelling animal has not.