Why Stories Matter — Art as a Mirror of Who We Are

Today I want to explore something that has been at the very center of my own journey — and I think it sits at the center of what makes us human. I believe it begins with stories. With books. With myth, music, art.

They give us language for what we’re afraid to say. They keep us from being alone in our pain. They give us maps for how to live — and, eventually, for how to face loss and death. They teach us compassion for people we might otherwise write off. And they keep our hearts tender, so we’re not so quick to repeat history’s cruelties.

I was raised in a deeply Christian environment. As a child, I read and memorized Bible passages. I was taught that this was the Truth — the single explanation for why we’re here, what’s right and wrong, who we should be.

There was some comfort in that, I suppose. A sense of certainty. A clear map.

But when I went to university and took my first mythology course, everything cracked open. I discovered that humans have been telling stories forever — across continents, languages, and centuries — all trying to answer the same questions: Why are we here? Who are we? What is this world made of? Is there something larger holding all of this together?

I learned there were flood myths long before Genesis, stories of tricksters, stories of journeys into the underworld. It didn’t cheapen my faith. It made it bigger. It showed me that cultures everywhere have reached for meaning in the dark — trying to make sense of suffering, love, loss, and death.

That course didn’t replace what I believed. It widened the frame.

Later, I encountered the work of Joseph Campbell, who studied myths from cultures across the world. He spoke about recurring patterns — stories of departure, trials, transformation, and return. Not because stories are identical, but because human beings keep circling the same questions: How do we live with courage? How do we carry what’s too heavy? How do we stay human when fear tightens its grip?

That’s when something clicked for me. Artists don’t invent our struggles. They listen closely enough to name them.

Artists act as mirrors of the societies they live in. They reflect back our fears, our longings, our contradictions — our cruelty and our hope. We return to stories not because they are new, but because we recognize ourselves in them.

For me, that understanding took root early in fiction. I read The Hobbit as a child. Later, The Lord of the Rings changed me in a deeper way.

Those books weren’t really about battles or fantasy realms. They were about moral weight — about ordinary people asked to carry impossible burdens, about how power corrupts, and how friendship, loyalty, and humility can save what force never will.

Tolkien lived through world wars, through the collapse of old certainties, through industrial destruction on a massive scale. He mirrored that world back to us — not as argument, but as story. And somehow, through hobbits and rings, he told the truth about courage more clearly than any manifesto ever could.

Much later, The Road by Cormac McCarthy landed with a different kind of force. A father and son walking through a burned world. No safety nets. No systems. No guarantees.

And yet — they carry the fire.

That novel stripped everything down to the bone and asked the most ancient question there is: What does it mean to stay human when everything else is gone? McCarthy didn’t explain. He didn’t preach. He held up a mirror — and trusted us to look.

Stories matter because we cannot rely on systems or governments alone to keep us from repeating history. That work begins inside us.

Stories keep us awake. They stretch our empathy. They help us notice when language turns sharp, when fear narrows our vision, when cruelty starts to feel justified.

When we stop reading — when we stop listening — we lose depth. We become easier to divide, easier to manipulate, easier to convince that blame belongs somewhere else.

And it’s not just about consuming stories. It’s also about keeping our own alive.

Family stories. Languages. Recipes. Songs. Memories.

Those are myths too, in the best sense of the word. They tell us who we are — and remind us of what we’re responsible for.

We return to stories because they interrupt cycles. They pause the momentum toward cruelty. They remind us what it costs to lose our humanity.

They offer no guarantees — only recognition. Sometimes, that recognition is enough to make us choose differently. And in times like these, that might be the most hopeful work we have.