We Are Not Brands to be Optimised | The Beauty of the Unfinished Story ❤️

We Are Gloriously Unfinished Beings 

Why Our Truest Stories Defy Neat Endings

#newspaperinlearning

26th May 2026

I happened to read a very interesting article in today’s The Times of India by Santosh Desai titled, “What’s Your Story?”

I am quite surprised to note that this article has a lot of parallels with our blogpost yesterday, (HERE) on the Unbearable Soullessness of the BOThor.

A perfect companion piece? 😊

Both articles seem to lament the mechanisation and the loss of “soul” in modern storytelling.

To Desai, “storytelling” - particularly in business, branding, and social media (like LinkedIn) - has become a manipulative and manufactured tool rather than a genuine form of expression.

Brands need to tell their stories. Individuals’ lives must follow a storyline. Startups must create stories to tell prospective investors. Even ideas need to be dressed up as stories if they want to circulate.

Humans are hence increasingly mechanising their own lives and stories, and as a result, we are faking authenticity, he feels.

While yesterday’s blogpost critiqued AI for “creating” writing that is completely devoid of the lived experience, Desai warns us that humans are starting to write and live like emotionless, calculating machines! (optimising and tuning stories only for outcomes!)

So what then is the true purpose of stories?

Santosh Desai believes that a great story should ‘open up’ possibilities, acknowledge human complexity, and leave us slightly disturbed or ‘unfinished.’ It should be an organic exploration of reality.

I would like to reiterate on the phrase, ‘open up!’

Santosh Desai then highlights the difference between the two kinds of stories.

Says he -

There are two kinds of stories. Closed stories and open stories.

A closed story is designed to arrive at a point. It is created to make us feel a specific way. It begins with an intention and moves toward a resolution! There is no doubt about what the message is. Most contemporary storytelling sits here.

An open story works differently. It does not aim to land at a specific point. It makes us linger on and on. You do not come away with a settled conclusion but with a feeling of being disturbed, of having something get unsettled.

An open story is a worm in the mind, wriggling uncomfortably long after the story is over.

The difference is not just about endings. It is about who wields authority in the interaction.

In a closed story, authority sits with the teller who wields the narrative skillfully. The audience’s role is to ooh and aah at the right moments.

In an open story, authority is shared. The listener participates in making meaning.

Open stories are not easy to circulate. They prod rather than comfort.

Interestingly, most Indian epics tell open stories, which allow for interpretation, discussion and disagreement. Many actions described in these stories sit on a moral hinge, leaving room for debate for a society to question what its values really are.

A great story opens up possibilities. One travels elsewhere from where one returns differently. A great story moves us, not just in terms of emotion but in terms of perspective. We see the world through someone else’s heart, and we are just a bit different as a result.

Think of the story as a form of reorientation. Of something that allows us to acknowledge complexity by understanding it in human terms. It gives us a way of reaching for things without grasping them fully. It expands our sense of how things might be, without insisting that they are so. A great story allows us to stay unfinished by refusing completeness. At its best, a story is a rope tossed into the future.

At their core, then, the difference between an open and a closed story comes down to control versus collaboration.

In other words, it is the difference between a guided tour on a fixed track and being dropped into the wilderness with a compass.

A closed story is engineered for a specific outcome. The author acts as the supreme authority, carefully orchestrating the plot, characters, and emotions to ensure the reader arrives at a predetermined destination. There is a clear moral, the loose ends are tied in a neat bow, and the audience’s role is simply to consume the message.

To Santosh Desai, modern “personal branding” stories are entirely closed ones – “Buy my product” types, and hence leave no room for the reader to reach a different verdict.

Take for example, the story of the Hare and the Tortoise in Aesop’s Fables, which is a good example of closed stories. The story literally ends with a stated moral so the reader cannot possibly misinterpret the point.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol also, though a masterpiece, is a closed story. Scrooge is bad, he is shown the error of his ways, he becomes unequivocally good, and Tiny Tim lives, and the moral message is handed directly to the reader.

However, an open story mirrors the messiness of actual human existence. The author creates the world, sets the characters in motion, and then steps back, forcing the reader to participate in creating the meaning. They are ambiguous, often ending without a neat resolution, leaving the reader with lingering questions or moral friction.

An open story respects the intelligence and the “inner life” of the reader, allowing them to project their own lived experiences onto the narrative.

Take for example, Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, wherein after spending the entire novel recounting a fantastical tale of surviving on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, the protagonist offers a second, bleakly realistic, and brutal version of the story. He then asks, “Which story do you prefer?” The author never confirms which is true – and the reader is forced to choose.

The same is the case with the Mahabharata – and most of the Indian epics which are fiercely open. The lines of dharma (duty/righteousness) are constantly blurred. Even the “righteous” Pandavas use deceit to win the war, and the aftermath is filled with sorrow rather than pure triumph. It forces the listener to constantly debate what is right and wrong.

AI Writing and corporate storytelling are examples of closed stories, simply because, machines and marketing algorithms are only capable of producing closed stories. They optimise for “engagement” and “clarity.”

Only a human, writing from a place of genuine, messy authenticity, has the courage to leave a story open.

Organically human!

I would love to end this post with a beautiful quote by Alice Munro –

A story is not like a road to follow... it’s more like a house. You go inside and stay there for a while, wandering back and forth and settling where you like!

So the takeaway? 

We are not brands to be optimised – but wonderfully messy, deeply complex humans, and our truest stories always remain gloriously unfinished!

That’s because we are a work-in-progress! 😊

You may want to read our past blogpost from nine years ago - dated 4th January 2017 - on how to Think in Stories! Yes, Think critically, deeply and sensitively in stories, HERE on our blog.