Sadly, these freeways were of little benefit to the people still living in homes located below the freeways. Furthermore, the freeways often disrupted the flow of people and commerce in the ethnic communities, accelerating their social and economic decline. We see in this Chicago project a commentary on societal values, as well as a blending of storytelling, preservation, and display. As was the case with the Montana project, participants in all of the various roles in the Chicago project experienced the spirit of generativity, be they story-tellers, document providers, listeners, or document collectors.
One of our four Featured Players, Lisa, sums-up the essential role played by storytelling during her Sage project interview. She comments on her own interest in becoming a storyteller, particularly in organizations of which she is a member:
“When asked what my purpose is in wanting to become a skilled storyteller, I say that I have seen Out of Africa, and that I can get Robert Redford! I really want to be a good storyteller; it is simply fascinating and listening to good stories just warms the heart. I want to bring this skill to my work with the nonprofits here in our community in order to help them tell their stories well. It’s about engagement, in telling their story so well that the storyteller gets a strong reaction and connection between people and their organization. When this happens, they really “get it” and want to learn more about the organization and become part of it.”
We observe that storytelling might be particularly challenging for men and women who do not come from or live in a verbally oriented society. So many contemporary societies are print oriented. We spend little time sitting around a campfire or fireplace recalling our family or organization’s stories. At best, we save the stories for reunions, birthdays, or special holidays. Unfortunately, we often need one of the other Generativity Three acts to find a reason and proper venue for the storytelling—unless we are engaged in a professional coaching process that promotes story-telling and the exploration of personal narratives (Drake, 2008).
The Prospects of Generativity Three Stagnation
We conclude this essay about Generativity Three by turning, briefly, to the opposite end of the generativity Three spectrum. We focus once again on the absence of generativity and the resulting condition of personal stagnation. Stagnation as a reaction against Generativity Three is about a narrowness of space and time. We can’t look beyond where we are right now. This means we either disregard the old or ignore the new. In disregarding the old, a person who is stagnant no longer cares about that which came before. The stagnant person considers the old to be “irrelevant,” that which “time has passed by.” This often includes personal history, their contributions in the past, their own legacy. We may be nostalgic about our past life, but we do nothing about it. We don’t honor our own heritage. We don’t honor the contributions of people who have impacted our lives. We move forward without bringing the past with us, which means that we probably don’t really move forward at all. Rather, we spin around and around without a compass or road map. We keep making the same mistakes, learning little from the past.
Discounting the Old
One of the most insightful and expansive thinkers of the 20th Century, Gregory Bateson (1979) wrote about the un-use in biological systems. Bateson uses an example of the femur on a whale (the fin that extends from the top of the whale’s back). This anatomical unit of the whale’s body no longer is of much use; however, it was once very important as a stabilizer for the whale when the ocean currents were much stronger than they are today. Nature decided via evolution to reduce the size of the femur, but not to eliminate it since the ocean might once again become more turbulent. Why reinvent the femur when it can be saved for another time in the future?
