Human brains create stories even when stories are nowhere to be found. If someone had told me this before my trip to the Youth4Regions programme for aspiring journalists, I would be nothing short of confused. Six days in Brussels (and a total of ten hours of sleep) later, I understood.
“If there are two little dots moving around randomly on a screen, human brains would make up a story about them,” says Jack Ryan, one of this years’ winners of the Megalizzi-Niedzielski prize for aspiring journalists.
The dots are chasing each other in a never-ending game of hide-and-seek. Or perhaps they are dancing together in a well-rehearsed tango lesson. Their movement can never be random for a human brain, as a human brain is an imprecise, but an impassioned, storyteller.
As a storyteller myself, the idea of studying journalism had never occurred to me early on: studying science did. Science communication allowed me to see how simple language can explain complex narratives and how technical researchers can become inventive storytellers.
As a bioscientist who once thought they’d spend the rest of their career pipetting solutions in the lab, I could have never imagined that one rainy October I will find myself in Brussels, “the capital of Europe”, exchanging ideas with the brightest young journalists in Europe and beyond.
But there I was, at the 19th European Week of Regions and Cities, sitting among students writing for their local university newspapers, seasoned reporters with a passport stamp from every corner of the world, social media aficionados and press officers on their way to yet another media conference.
And before I knew it, I was sitting on the same dinner table with one of the soon-to-beannounced winners of this year's Megalizzi-Niedzielski prize, in awe of the realisation that we both have common friends despite never having visited each other’s countries. I was casually exchanging suggestions and advice with Commissioner Elisa Ferreira on my way to lunch. I was eagerly waving a hand in front of two Euronews panellists, who were struck by the sheer enthusiasm of more than 40 young journalists from 27 EU member states and beyond.
If there is one thing in common between all of these people, I realised, is that they are all storytellers. So am I.
These six days in Brussels, for one thing, taught me the most significant lesson – to believe that among all chaos, I can always spot two more dots taking a tango lesson
