The Moth

There are a lot of things you can do with your time today. Time has become one of the most valued and precious commodities in modern times, one just does not have enough of it to do all that one wants. Free time presents its own dilemma since a choice must be made on how best to use it, yet the choices are so many that an opportunity cost analysis must be undertaken and there the dilemma begins. People would generally want to spend their free time with their friends or families. They would want to eat out or indulge in sports. Entertainment could also come from going to the cinema to watch movies, or watching a play at a theater, or heading to a concert or going to a game. We have a plethora of options available to us for our free time and we all have our various preferences and moods when the time comes to decide. Yet how many people would spend their time listening to stories?And by stories we don’t mean plot or lessons given indirectly by theatre or movies, in fact we are talking about real life encounters, real everyday stories that happen all around us and that have the power of affect us more profoundly than anything else. To get a sense of what is meant here all you need to do is get The Moth tickets.

 
In elaboration The Moth is basically a non-profit organization or group that is dedicated and focuses solely on the art of storytelling. And the simple act of storytelling and the affect it has on people was the motivation behind the creation of this group by poet and novelist George Dawes Green. The concept that Green had was deeply connected to his own personal experiences of storytelling. He wanted to recreate the feeling of the times when he and his friends would gather in the evenings to swap tales in his native Georgia with the moths gathering to the light on the porch. This original group of friends or storytellers called themselves The Moths and hence the name was born along with the idea. The Moth holds storytelling events in various cities in the United States including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and various others. The events themselves have gained quite a lot of recognition and always have the participation of prominent personalities belonging to the world of literature and culture. Among the many famous and prominent people who have been storytellers at these events include Ethan Hawke, Moby and Andy Borowitz to name a few.

 
The Moth also hold events called “StorySLAM” which are essentially storytelling competitions that are open to everyone. These competitions are held in selected cities. Aside from these competitions The Moth also holds storytelling workshops that are free of charge for high school students and the underprivileged class. The organization has expanded its reach towards various mediums of communication. They organize “The Moth Radio Hour” which was initiated in 2009 and currently runs on over 200 radio stations in the United States. The purpose again is to share the most compelling and exciting stories through a medium which is widely accessible. The Moth also has a weekly podcast featuring free stories from the various Moth events. These podcasts have also been quite popular with over 70,000 subscribers. The moth radio show also won the Peabody Award which recognizes meritorious public service through radio station or other media.

 
The Moth has provided a unique platform for storytelling and breathing a new life into this art which is probably as old as the human race is. The modern way of life may have disconnected us from this ancient art that not only served as a form of amusement and entertainment but also reached deep within people and taught lessons for life, ethics and morality. It is this essence that this group is working to recreate and the uniqueness of what the group do is what that works in their favor and has developed so much interest in the people. One of the events organized by The Moth in Central Park, New York City had over 4500 people in attendance. Just as a play would induce sadness, joy and inspiration in the audience so do these tales told of real life people in real life situations. Only once you have bought The Moth tickets and been to one of their events can you judge how instructional these can be.