StoryWorthy
Matthew Dicks
Summary
Matthew discusses how to construct compelling stories, which if you think about it, is central to almost every conversation we have.
Rating: 4/5
Notes
Your story must reflect change over time
Don’t tell drinking or vacation stories
Don’t tell other people’s stories. Tell your version of them
If you wouldn’t tell your story at a dinner table, don’t tell it
If you had to tell a 5 minute story from what happened today, what would it be?
- It requires commitment and faith. Trust the process
Crash and burn - free flow writing (spend 15 minutes doing this)
- You must not get attached to any one idea
- You must not judge any thought that appears in your mind
- Don’t allow the pen to stop moving
First, last, best, worst prompt
All great stories tell the story of a give second moment in that person’[s life
It’s never about the big moment but the moments that forever changed you
Ask yourself where the story ends and what is the opposite of that? That’s the beginning. Change is key
The first idea is rarely the best idea
Start the story as close to the end as possible
Try to start your story with forward movement wherever possible
Don’t start by setting expectations
13 rules for a commencement speech:
- Don’t compliment yourself
- Be self-deprecating only if it’s real
- Don’t ask rhetorical questions
- Offer one bit of granular wisdom, one both applicable and memorable
- Don’t cater any part of the speech to the parents
- Make your audience laugh
- Never mention weather
- Speak as if you’re friends
- Emotion is good
- Don’t tell them what the world will be like
- Never quote the dictionary
- Don’t use other people’s quotes
- Finish your speech in less than the allotted time
Every story must have an elephant - the large and obvious thing
- Make your audience think they’re on path and trick them into another
The backpack: increase the audience’s anticipation of an event
- Make the audience wonder and make them experience the same emotion as you
- Their most effective when plans don’t work
Breadcrumbs: hint at a future event but only enough to keep the audience guessing
Hourglass: when the audience knows what’s coming, make them wait
Crystal balls: false predictions made by the storyteller to see if it’s true
Omit certain parts of the story
Audiences don’t want redemption
Compress your story
Change the order of the story to fit the narrative
Create a movie in the mind of your audience
- Always provide a physical location for every moment of the story
- Give every scene a location
Instead of using ‘and’ to connect stories, use ‘but’ and ‘therefore;
The negative is better than the positive when storytelling
For big stories, you must find small relatable moments everyone can appreciate
Always try and say less
The key is bringing out emotion in people is surprised
Start with a laugh
End your stories w/ heart, something bigger than a laugh
Your 5 second moment must focus on one thing
Ask yourself in your stories why you do the things you do
Shift tenses in your stories but start with the present so people feel like they’re there
People love underdog stories
Don’t ask rhetorical questions, don’t address the audience, no props
Don’t swear or use profanity in your blog
Never compare people in stories to celebrities
Don’t memorize your story: first lines, last lines and scenes
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How the World Works
Noam Chomsky
Summary
A combination of books Chomsky wrote in the 80s and 90s about America and it's role in the world. Fascinating read and insight into one of the great thinkers of the 21st century
Rating: 5/5
Notes
The US invaded Greece in 1947 and supported a horrendous war which led to 160k Greek deaths. This was the model for Vietnam and allowed American business to gain and thrive
US policies in the 3rd world consistently opposed democracies if they couldn’t be controlled as real democracies believe government should respond to the needs of their own population rather than those of US investors
US-run contra forces in the 3rd world isn’t ordering killing - it’s brutal sadistic torture (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala)
From the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 till the collapse of the communist governments in eastern europe in the 80s, it was possible to justify every US attack as defense against the Soviets
If you want a global system that’s subordinated to the needs of US investors, you can’t let pieces of it wander off. It’s clearly stated in the documents of record
The US wants ‘stability’ meaning security for the upper classes and large foreign businesses
Solid case for impeaching every American president since World War 2 either outright as war criminals or involved in serious war crimes
El Salvador and Nicaragua were not covered by the US media in the 70s when US-supported brutal torture and murder were taking place
In the early 80s, America’s friends slaughtered 10s of thousands of Guatemalans with countless others tortured and raped
After Vietnam, the major US policy goal has been to maximize repression and suffering of countries demonstrated by their violence - blocked other countries from seeking aid
The US regularly carries out or supports aggression
For most of the 20th century, the US was the dominant economic power and used economic warfare as a weapon ranging from illegal embargoes to enforcement of weak IMF rules with their military becoming pre-eminent
The US tries to avoid negotiations with countries as the US fears it will lose and other countries will be better off
When a state has huge debts, it must divert the population from what’s happening and they do this by inspiring fear of our enemies (Russia in Europe)
The real enemy of the US has always been ‘the poor who seek to plunder the rich’. In America, it’s the opposite and has been for generations
‘The war on drugs’ was a manufactured media blitz by the US leadership to distract the population, increase repression in inner cities and build support for attack on civil liberties
The US government blocks international effort to seek peace (Russia and Ukraine)
Major media are large companies owned and interlinked with even larger conglomerates. The market is the advertisers and the product is audiences
The power in the US lies in the hands of people who determine investment decisions as they determine production, distribution and staff the government. They want a passive, quiescent population
The struggle of freedom is never over and requires active and sustained efforts
One important consequence of globalization is it extends the third world model to industrial nations where the average person has their jobs shipped away while the rich and elite continue to amass massive amounts of wealth
We’ve moved to an international state with the IMF, World Bank, G7 & EU, WEF where the general population doesn’t know what’s happening and it doesn’t know it doesn’t know
If the borrowing the US has done was used for constructive purposes like investment or infrastructure, the US would be better off, but it was used to enrich the rich - for consumption, financial manipulation and speculation which are all harmful
The class warfare of the last few decades has successfully weakened popular organizations leaving people to feel isolated
The US is so deeply in debt to the international financial community because of debt that they have a lock on US policy
Many of the large number of security council resolutions vetoed by the US have to do with Israeli aggression or atrocities
Invaders typically use local collaborators to run things for them by playing upon existing rivalries to get onne group to work for them against another
European wars were wars of extermination. If we were to be honest about history, we would simply describe it as barbarian invasion
There has always been racism but it developed as a leading principle of thought in the context of colonialism.
A standard technique of belief formation goes along with oppression
In the US, you’re not allowed to talk about the class differences, which is the real issue
When the US establishment talks about jobs, it means profits for its corporations
The elite are masters and they follow what Adam Smith said about ‘the vile maxim’ - all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else
People who aren’t owners and investors have nothing much to say in the US
Jefferson warned against banking institutions and corporations and said if they grow, aristocrats would’ve won and the revolution would’ve been lost
The ‘Free market’ is for the poor. We have a dual system - protection for the rich and market discipline for everyone else
There’s been a considerable increase in inequality and has the American society moving towards a third world model, thereby seeing increased crime and signs of social disintegration
A huge area of the media is dedicated to diverting people and making them more stupid and passive
There’s nothing individualistic about corporations who are totalitarian in nature
Free trade agreements result in reduced wages for local employees while predominantly benefiting the rich consumer while also destroying unions
Operation Paper Clip imported large number of known Nazi criminals
The American army’s counter-insurgency literature begins with an analysis of the German experience in Europe written with the co-operation of Naxi officials (instruments of statecraft - book)
US involvement in Chile with the coup in 1973 to reduce social democracy
The threat of a good empire is what the US worried about with reforms on uncontrolled capitalism
The US killed a few million people and destoryed 3 countries during the Vietnam war
A huge amount of business propaganda is to create wants
The answers to solve all these issues is to organize. Being alone you can’t do anything but if you join with other people, you can make changes
Under capitalism, investment is supposed to be as risk free as possible. No competition wants free markets - what they want is power
The government subsidizes corporations’ costs, protects them from market risks and lets them keep the profits
There’s never been much difference between the 2 business parties and the differences are disappearing
The CIA has been involved in drug running for generations (the politics of heroin book)
You need something to frighten people with, to prevent them from paying attention to what’s really happening to them. You have to engender fear and hatred
The first world lives in a highly indoctrinated society
Neoliberalism is nothing more than the imperial formula: free markets for you and plenty of protection for me. The rich would never accept it but they’re happy to impose it on the poor
The UN does mostly what US business wants
‘Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business’ - John Devery
If people dedicate themselves to organizing and activism, we’ll gain access to broader audiences
If you extrapolate to the future, it’s very ugly but the point is it’s not inevitable. It can be changed but we can’t change things till we understand them.
***
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