Stories and Storytelling

Is the art of storytelling defunct?  This was the topic of an article in the Times last week.  In our modern digital age, there is no place for the slow development of story.  Tweet, twitter, blog, text:  these have replaced the old craft of the bard.  We have such easy access to information that no one wants to wait for a denouement.  If instant gratification is possible, why not just get on with it?
But of course, life is not like that.  In the real world, our lives unfold slowly and with significance.  We cannot see the patterns in our lives as they develop, but that does not mean they are not there.  Tapestries are woven from the back, and the design cannot be seen until the picture is completed.  (Read Tracey Chevalier's 'The Lady and the Unicorn' for a beautiful description of the process).  Electronic messages broadcast what we have been doing, but they do not endow our experience with meaning:  only the deep process of psychic maturation can do that.  Our brains are programmed to perceive pattern and meaning.  This is why we can hear words in the random sounds of speech, and why we see pictures in the clouds.  Humans are hard-wired to seek out stories.  In the past twenty years, there has been a dramatic resurgence in the art of storytelling at just the same time as the dramatic rise in home computing.  The two media are not in competition:  they satisfy different needs.  Since ancient times, people have told stories to make sense of the world.  The oldest of these stories are called myths, and they still resonate for us today.  Storytelling is not threatened by the internet:  narrative lies at the heart of human experience.