Idries Shah in his book The Sufis says, ‘Superficially, most of the Nasrudin stories may be used as jokes . . . But it is inherent in the Nasrudin story that it may be understood at any one of many depths. There is the joke, the moral- and the little extra which brings the consciousness of the potential mystic a little further on the way to realization.’
For the Fall 2023 semester, I decided to take Personal Storytelling at the Storytelling Institute again because I had first taken the class a long time ago and I wanted to add more personal stories to my repertoire.
The first time I took the class was in Fall 2017. At that time, I was new to storytelling and now when I reflect back to the stories I told it was just an exercise. While there was some crafting there was not much art. The telling of the stories while enjoyable to the listeners felt superficial to me. Since then, I have told those stories again and again. In fact, I told one of the stories at my Storytelling Graduation Ceremony in May 2023. While the plot of the story was the same the story felt completely different. Like a Nasrudin (often referred to as Mulla) story, my story had gained some depth.
I have very few personal stories in my repertoire, and these have been told many times. Wanting to increase the number of personal stories in my repertoire I decided to take the class again and crafting personal stories continued to be challenging for me. I can read through a list of prompts and while the prompts may trigger a memory here or there nothing sticks long enough to reach that depth from which I would want to craft it into a story. And even if some idea gets past that phase I get stumped by the question, “Why do I want to tell this story?”
Then a discussion in class about universal themes ignited a thought. What if I explored universal themes to prompt story ideas? Austin Valenzuela in his article “What is a Universal Theme”’, explains that a universal theme is that which resonates with the characteristics of all humanity. It includes ideas that are adaptable and recurring throughout time and human experience. Just the fact that the story was emerging from a universal theme would be enough to answer my, “Why do I want to tell this story?” question.
So, I started searching the internet for what are some recurring universal themes. As you can imagine I found many. Paul Jenkins’ blog as the title Universal Themes: 180 Examples for Literature and LifeLinks to an external site. suggests has 180 examples. Below are some that resonated with me and I feel that may lead to the crafting of a story or two:
- Overcoming obstacles
- Transition to adulthood
- Grief and loss
- Living in the moment
- Parent relationship
- Sibling rivalry
- Value of friendship
- Accepting fate
- Fond memories
- Embracing change
- Seizing the moment
- Method in madness
- Cultural misunderstandings
When I look back at the personal stories in my repertoire I can relate a universal theme to each of them. And this brings me back to Idries Shah’s description of Nasrudin stories. While my stories may have seemed superficial to me they still held a deeper universal theme. And as I grow as a storyteller, I hope I can appreciate that little extra that is inherent in the stories.
Learn more about Diana here.
The image of Nasrudin at the top of the post can be found here.
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