Photo by Lauren Mancke on Unsplash

Stories are human’s creative canvas to display the complexities of life, in all its glory: the good times, interspersed with the bad feelings, and the ugly contradictions humans exhibit.

Don’t allow the dramatized, over-the-top nature of Hollywood to rob you of this understanding. Yes, on the surface, a crippled man infusing his psyche with a 10-foot tall alien exoskeleton that allows him to infiltrate said alien culture living on a well of a “mystical” ore, seems far removed from reality.

Dig deeper.

You’ll see that story (Avatar) is nothing more than a futuristic re-imagining of the imperialistic genocides that took place throughout Earth’s history. “Manifest Destiny” sound familiar?

Another example, few people can say they’ve experienced the wild and wacky misadventures of the three middle-aged, mild-mannered leading men of Horrible Bosses. Yet, the driving force of the story — the desire to exact revenge on an authority figure — exists in nearly everyone’s life to some degree.

Our life is a story, with snippets of it captured on cameras. Movies are snippets of life captured on cameras. The inextricable nature of life and story means, for those who seek it, boundless life lessons can be gleaned from stories and the understanding of storytelling.

Through my studies in the art of screenwriting, I’ve been afforded these life lessons.