Katie's Ch. 2 Reflection

In looking at the different types of stories (official, invented, firsthand experience, secondhand, culturally common), I thought about what types of stories that I tell. But also why I tell them. Do my stories have more me-goals? You-goals? Conversational goals? However, I think that in storytelling we tend to use a combination of all three. They tend to overlap. There are times, like sitting on the plane flying here, that I was strictly telling stories solely in a conversational framework. But I think that stories can be seeking attention to impress the listener and get them involved (me-goal), illustrating a point (you-goal), and having a relationship between you and the audience (conversational-goal) all at the same time. Although it is good to recognize different categories to strengthen why we are telling them, I think that this is something worth remembering: “We tell stories to describe ourselves not only so others can understand who we are but also so we can understand ourselves…the collection of stories we have compiled is to some extent who we are, what we have to say about the world, and tells the world the state of our mental health” (p.44). I think that is a good focal point.