Friends, coworkers, heck the whole world now, is obsessed with arcing content into fame online. Blog fever and social media are partially to blame. True, we get most of our news, glam tips, and health research from the Web. So in this digital reality, shouldn’t we also expect to publish anecdotes of our own that could change lives, perhaps some person’s we’ve never even met?

Looking to the classics, elements of story closely align with life, death and the struggle to exist. Oral tradition forged meaning within communities through old fashioned conversation and mythic education. The Odyssey, an epic Greek poem written in dactylic hexameter, was first read aloud or sung. Many Native American and Aboriginal stories, also shared out loud, are snapshots of a tribe’s morality, ethics, and right behavior.

Though it’s tempting to deify the past, I suspect ego entered their social fabric, too. How well a story is told probably earned points and political leverage. Some things absolutely stay the same. But the difference now seems to be that we’ve aggravated the arc – and the joy – of simple story telling.

Perhaps “joy story” void is due in part to an over-saturated marketplace. With content playing king to marketing campaigns, it’s no surprise that some content serves to titillate rather than truly engage our deeper sense of social inter-connectedness, pain, and hunger for meaning. While story is as alluring now as it has always been, today it’s more fractal fast-food fodder and less mind-altering, soul-stirring message. Sociologists, what’s up with that?

For actual, lasting Joy of Story, we need a seat in the circle. First, we need a circle. With iPhones aside, let’s chant into dream space together and re-enact the myth of slaying a dragon or staving off famine. In this story, the beast might be our failure to find joy in pixels and famine the utter isolation of empty texting.

I talk about wisdom keepers a lot. I like how The Moth, Ignite and Ted keep the art of storytelling and wisdom sharing alive. This is digital content democracy – good stuff and new communities unite. Blogs also give us a way to keep the art of story thriving. As we blog, we become wisdom keepers, too.