Is it better to just tell someone that eating lots of bacon cheeseburgers will cause a heart attack or to actually tell people the story of my uncle Joe who after a hard day's work sitting eight hours at his office desk would head to his local burger joint to pound five bacon cheeseburgers everyday -- and not satisfied with the traditional offerings he would augment the greasy monstrosity he would consume with a few slices of extra cheese and five additional strips of bacon. Unsurprisingly, he just dropped dead one day right in middle of taking a bite of one of those lovely cholesterol bombs, juice still dribbling down his cheek, his heart saturated with what he loved most in this world. My uncle was a kind fat man, a tragic Santa Klauss who always gave back to the grill-working pimpled teens of his community. They said his arteries were blocked worse than a California freeway at rush hour. Every burger I see, every fast food place, every rancid scent of fried potato brings back the specter of my uncle, reminds me of the clandestine death lurking within the tastiness of food.
There is a reason that even nonfiction informative article writers will often include a personal story. Stories are convincing and add an emotional angle to a topic. The prolific nature of stories across cultures and civilizations suggests human beings have an ingrained need to hear and tell stories. It shouldn't be all that surprising that stories with their origin in myths extend beyond mere entertainment and become a mode of understanding our world. Myths transmit values of the culture and understandings of the nature of the world, whereas in later literature adds the function of critiquing and bringing forth problems of a particular society.