I’ve been running into a mantra that emerges from the forest leaves of my everyday experience like an exotic bird, a flash of colour that then darts again out of view, only to reappear once more later on in a clearing, and again in the fronds of a bush, then again flashing across the sky above the canopy. The mantra-bird is an inescapable truism that I’m finding applies to all and every thing we might want to communicate to others: show, don’t tell.
It almost stalks me – more like a beast on the hunt, that has picked up my scent, from which my leaden feet cannot run – I lope through the forest hearing the pound of its feet coming after me through the thicket, echoing in the trees: show, don’t tell; show, don’t tell.
I have a music student, and they must learn from me, a music teacher, but they never will by mere instruction; instead, I pick up a guitar to mirror them, and I show; and they can mirror me.
I have a son, who will not listen to my instruction to get his pyjamas on, but I invite him into an experience with me, wherein we can play, and have fun, and in which our pyjamas are present, and we end up wearing them at the end of it, because I showed, I didn’t tell.
I write a song, or a story, and all the metaphors are worn out and the argument has died before it is finished on the page, because I am trying with all my might to tell, to tell you how to live, or how things are, or how they should be; and when I put down the pen and take a walk, I remember that the decisions I have made have always been, not because I heard a marvellous explanatory proposition or some great theory, but because I saw an example in someone else so compelling that I had to leap up and follow; and I hear those footsteps echo after me still, and I recognise that the song or the story needs no other instruction than this: show, don’t tell; show, don’t tell; SHOW, DON’T TELL.
I hear a ragged street preacher doing their very best to shout from the corner to the passers-by who don’t want to hear, and I think to myself, show, don’t tell.
I read Dan Brown and I think, for goodness’ sake, show, don’t tell.
Show me how it is; show me how it could be; show me how to live, but please do not tell. Telling is patronising; telling is know-it-all; showing is invitation; telling is a brick wall.
I’ll leave it there – except for this, in case you’re wondering: ‘How do I show instead of tell?’ I won’t tell you, I wouldn’t dare; I simply gesture, head in hand, to what I’ve written here. I hope I’ve shown, I hope you see: SHOW, DON’T TELL.
Ben David Trigg 