Mr. Sexson is fond of saying that information in books is not always true. If we take this as a given, then how can we accept that he knows how mythology began. He was not around when mythology was being put in place, therefore his knowledge is coming from books and opinions also. As such, it cannot be true, but is merely his philosophy. The idea that people began with a worship of the gods as animals because they were food, and later of representations of us, is a conjecture based on an analysis of other sources. However, we are led to understand that sources are not necessarily factual and that analysis can be faulty. Or maybe I'm wrong, the world really is flat, and I should wear garlic to ward off the vampires.
1/28/4:
What makes a story interesting? What is the essence of a cliffhanger? How much does rhythm play a part in the interest of the audience, and how much does the content? By listening to the story about the lady on the plane the other day it seems that content is what really makes a story interesting. The part that made us all hold our breath was when Mr. Sexson uttered 4 magic words-"..it changed my life." Now without the backround story these words may not have been as effective, but used in context they were, they caused a powerful impression. Why is it that certain elements of a story cause everyone to anticipate the answer, even when we might have guessed it already? My question is, are there elements that will always naturally entice and excite humanity? Does everyone's own story contain common characteristics?
2/2/4:
When was the last time you stopped to really see something? If people could stop rushing through life and learn to enjoy the subtle details of the day, they might be more happy with the quality of life. Details are what give dimension and texture to the world. They are the words in the book, or the ripples in the water. The details lend magic to the world. It is a sad thing that magic has become childish in our society. Didn't life have more meaning to the people who believed in faeries? The Native American ceremonies gave their dances a much more profound meaning than simply moving the body. Consider futuristic movies like Gatica and Equilibrium that explore ideas about what makes us human. Without our feelings and appreciation for the finer points of life, humans are just machines with little purpose. This brings up the question of how can we suggest that Jonah wasn't real, or that dragons don't exist, when to do so would be to deny that anything magic happens in the world. For those of you skeptics, consider the recorded cases of mothers lifting massive vehicles single-handed to free their children. What about unexplained occurances that have been attributed to ghosts and angels? Humans ability to thrive exponentially despite the wars, disease, and killing that occur even seems like a miracle when considered next to the rise and fall of any other animal species. To simply disregard anything simply because it does not agree with our logic is to deny the mysticism of the world. Our ability to believe in magic gives our actions meaning...and makes us human.
2/4/4
We have been asked to define love, which by definition cannot be explained in words. For a person to know what love is, they have to experience itnbsp; Love, or its absence, is the background to all other emotions. This is part of what makes it the strongest feeling. Once a person feels love they can never truly deny it, because they know what love is, and that feeling follows one forever. It is always the purest emotion that draws a person to want the most good for whatever he or she loves. Seen through the eyes of love, flaws become invisible. What I mean is, a person in love is a lot more likely to ignore the flaws, or find them charming (although if that person reasons it out, he or she might discover problems). The real difficulty is that the object that is loved seems so perfect that it can draw people to the worst kinds of desperation and jealousy to attain that object. These are kind of like the symptoms of withdrawl from the best drug in the world. This is the only way I can think to describe such an immense feeling in simple terms.
2/9/4
The idea of changing people's lives has led me to consider human interactions. How much about other people do we actually notice? I would encourage people to notice all the people that we would normally ignore (after all, ignoring someone is crueler than trying to hurt them). Pay attention to the quiet person in class. Really see that guy that walks by your house everyday. Notice that girl from highschool that you say hi to, but never have a real conversation with. Every person that enters a life is part of that mythology. Those people that help us when we're having a really shitty day become angels. The strange guy on the bus becomes a wizard, or an ogre. A girl you met under a bridge once might be a nymph in disguise. It seems that education should be more concerned with the personal myths of its inhabitants. Myths show us what is important to the people who create them. By studying all the personal myths and finding out what makes them similar and different, people could understand each other better. We could understand what drives us, and what we think makes us bond, or individual. Myths are as nostalgic as advice...they help us pass down the information that cannot be shown; our morals, our beliefs, our dreams.
2/11/4
Mythology is the first history. Before people knew how to record their languages, they would tell past events through music and song. Archetypal forms, repetition, and musical accompaniment would help the storyteller to remember important events and people. Therefore, music was an important part of the mythology. Music developed unique to each culture. The rhythms and instruments used for one group were not the same as those for another group. All of this makes me wonder if by simply READING a text, if the audience can actually get a full sense of that culture's mythology. Take Native American stories, for example. Their stories are immersed in ritual and accompanied by dances and special words of power. How can a white culture understand all of this without the beating of the drums and the ceremony? The music of a culture may be a vital part of mythology as intangible as thought.
2/13/4
So today is the big day. The day to find out if we're actually learning anything. Looking at my notes, I often find that I get caught up in the stories and forget to write a lot of it down. Mythology has become really closely tied with Greek and Roman traditions. Other myths are not addressed to a very large extent. Why do all cultures lead back to Greek traditions? I understand that the Greeks played a major role in the ancient philosophies and arts, and that these concepts were spread even farther by the Roman conquests, but don't other ancient cultures, such as Egyptian, also play vital roles? What makes Ovid's lustful tales more potent to our time than the Kama Sutra? How is the architecture of the Coliseum any more important than the impressive pyramids? Are we so much farther removed from the East that we cease to acknowledge it? All places have an impact on the world, but it is the Greek culture that has become the source in the minds of many nations.
2/18/4
After we corrected our tests, I realized that I am learning ideas and not facts. That is to say that I am understanding the gist of the material, but I have problems memorizing the actual facts. However, it is not the analysis of the material, but the concepts as they are plainly presented that I am most familiar with. For example, I am more comfortable discerning what separate theories mean than dividing them according to who said them. At the same time, it is simpler to decide whether a statement is part of a particular theory than to judge which myths actually exemplify that theory. The stories themselves do not seem to require a lot of notes, outside of the names. Maybe this is a result of all stories being an archetype. If a story has been repeated many times throughout history, it is more likely to be remembered than an idea presented for the very first time.
2/20/4
Myths are a form of nostalgia. If you don't believe this, consider that stories can be traced back to the most extraordinary model of human nature. As if this wasn't enough, even more miraculous events are thrown into the mix. It's not enough that a man is 3 feet taller than anyone you've ever seen, suddenly he becomes a Goliath. A man that can bench 30 more pounds than the strongest guy in class is a Hercules, and the bully on the playground is Grendel. All stories follow the same forms (hence the presence of archetypes). This suggests that there is some part of human nature that must be retold. It's not that archetypes are true to life, it is that they recall, with mysticism, some part of life that people want to remember. For the war hero, his epic is a way to remember how he conquered some great obstacle. After all, if a hero dies anonymously in a forest, is he really victorious?.
2/23/4
There was an actor who had a daughter who was so independent and arogant she always had to have the last word, so he said in an interview one day that he would marry her off to anyone who could make her hold her tongue. As extra incentive, he would give that man the rights to any movie he made afterwards. Many men came to take him up on this offer, but the actor's daughter never shut up. The actor got so tired of guys coming to his house that he went on TV saying he would bet the marriage of his daughter on her holding her tongue, but if he won, he would get to light you on fire an episode of Jackass.
In Santa Rosa there lived 3 brothers who were watching TV when this actor made the bet and they thought it would be a good idea, so the 3 of them went on a road trip together. When they had passed through San Fransisco, the youngest, who was a janitor, found some kernels on the street. He said, "Hey guys, looks at this!" His brothers asked what he had and when he told them, they said, "You're crazy! Throw them away." "I think I'll save it for later," said the janitor. After a while, the janitor found a little camping bowl in a tourist shop and he said, "Hey guys, look at this!" They asked him what it was and when he told them they said, "We have lots of bowls, leave it." The janitor shrugged and said, "I think I'll save it for later." After a little while longer, he found a Backstreet Boys video and bought it. He said, "Hey, check this out! Look what I got!" "Eww," said his brothers, "You really are crazy. I can't believe you paid for that." "Well, I think I'll save it for later," said the janitor. When they had gone farther, he found a broken spring in an alley, and just after he found the other half. He said, "Look at this!" His brothers replied, "What are you going to do with those? They're all twisted up!" "I think I'll save them for later," said the janitor. In a while, they saw some Clydes Dales at a brewery and one of the eyepieces fell off. The janitor said, "Now look what I have!" The brothers said, "That's a lot of finding you've been doing, what is it now?" He told them and they said to throw it away, but the janitor said, "I think I'll save it for later." As they were looking for the house, they saw a bum on the side of the street. The janitor gave the bum some coins in exchange for his hat. The hat smelled like booze and was almost threadbear. "Hey, look what I got from that bum for some cents," he said. "If only you could find some sense," said the brothers, "That's nasty! You don't know where it's been." "I think I'll save it for later," said the janitor. "You spend so much time picking up trash, you can't throw anything away!" said the brothers. They went up to the actor's house and told him about the bet. First the eldest was let in to see the daughter. "What's up?" he said. "What's up with you?" said the princess, practicing ballet. "It's hot up here," he said. "It's warmer in the fire," said the daughter. He saw a can of gasoline next to the fire and lost his nerve, so it was over with him. The middle brother went in and said, "What's up?" "What's up with you?" said the daughter, prancing around the room. "It's hot in here." "It's hotter in the fire," she said. At that, he was so shocked he lost his voice and he lost the bet. The janitor was let in last and he said, "What's up?" "What's up with you?" she said, dancing. "It's hot here." "It's hotter in the fire," she said, getting pissed. "I guess I can make some popcorn in there, then?" he asked. "There's nothing to cook it in," she said. "No problem! I've got a bowl," he replied. "Well then you'll need a movie to watch," the actor's daughter said. "I just got this," he said and pulled out Backstreet Boys. "Ugh! That's too terrible to look at!" said the daughter. "It's okay, I have this," the janitor said, pulling out the eyepiece. "You're twisting my words!" the girl said. "Your words aren't twisted, but this is!" the janitor replied, taking out half of the spring. "I've never seen the like!" she shouted. "Here it is," he said and took out the other. "You're trying to wear me out, aren't you?" she asked. "No, you're not worn out, but this is!" replied the boy and took out the bum's hat. At that, the actor's daughter had nothing to say. "Hah, I got you!" So the janitor eloped with the actor's daughter and got the rights for the rest of his movies, half of which were box-office hits.
2/25/4
There is a popular saying that says assume makes an ass out of you and me. How then can we justify making such major generalizations as assuming all people are archetypes? What if a modern man has more of an Electra complex instead of an Oedipus complex (that is, he's more interested in killing his mother and sleeping with his father)? In the modern world archetypes can be reversed, or transformed. We have already agreed in class that females are no longer characterized by silence. I'm sure that when some of us look back on highschool, we can see how the hero can be represented by the heroic figure and the trickster. New ideas have called into question the division between right and wrong. The shades of black and white are shifting more and more towards a tone of gray in our society. While it might help us to realize the echoes of the past, it would also serve to remember that life is changing in drastic ways, and nothing can be taken for granted.
3/1/4
Okay, so I lied...Lancelot is not my favorite hero story (although I think it's interesting that Arthur gets all the press and Lancelot was the best fighter and had the hardest struggles emotionally because he was a genuinely honorable, but human, character). I don't know if I really think any of the heroes stand out as the best of all time, but I really like the story of Richard in the book Wizard's First Rule. Incidentally, all the books by Terry Goodkind in that series are superb examples of the hero's journey. Faith of the Fallen is probably the most relevant to people today. The modern deconstructionist attitude has caused me to believe that maybe heroes can't be fictionalized anymore. Heroes today are human, like rappers, or Aragorn-like figures. Their super powers have become more realistic than exaggerated. A movie like Unbreakable shows its audience how average people can be mythologized into extraordinary figures. Science has become the new power. It has taken the mystery out of the hero and replaced it with reason, that can even be extended to a concept as unusual as A League of Extraordinary Gentleman. The balance between fantasy and reason continues.
3/5/4
Campbell presents a variety of opinions about religions and how they work together. One of his ideas is that all of life is great, including the suffering and destruction, because we do not have the right to judge what is "good" or "bad." How can anyone defend their beliefs, in Campbell's theory, without betraying this principle? I think the only way to reconcile this conflict is to concede that every person should act according to what they feel is right, but no one should try to force others to follow his or her beliefs, because this is an act of judgement and no one knows the purpose of those actions. This seems to be a manifestation of the tolerance that Christians are moving away from. But here, I think the idea is to still feel and attempt at self-improvement, but do not let the feelings lead to actual conclusions about what is going on. After all, in the end everything will play out exactly the way it is supposed to...it could not be any other way.
3/10/4
The focus for this class has been based primarily on Campbell and Leeming. Campbell has taken a quarter of the test through his films and essays, whereas our supplemental texts are expected to deal with Leeming. It comes as a slight disappointment that in a mythologies class, we are expected to look at the analysis, instead of any particular characters. When we talked about Big Fish, it was mentioned that the story was more important than the reality. While this was just speculation, mythology is about imagination and meaning. I concede that focusing on analysis will uncover different layers, but it also deconstructs the story. It is the story quality and the rituals that surround it that make it mythic. If the concentration is on the meaning of the words, the instant picture they paint together is lost. While analysis serves its purpose, I think that it should be used outside of mythology class, because mythology is about discovering hidden mysticism in the world, which cannot be done by turning it into a structure (based on someone's impersonal opinion).
3/22/4
Mythology relates, in many ways, to current events. It is not just the background that our culture has gained characteristics from the stories. There is also the notion that mythology has a close connection with the news. What I mean is the media tells just as much of the truth as any fictional work. They leave out what they don't want people to know about and talk about what they want people to focus on in order to gain sympathy. Exaggerations can be made. Facts can be fabricated, or based on shaky speculation. I heard one amusing monologue on this subject in which the speaker says that the media only writes about the sensational. They are not going to write about your accident on the way to work, or that it left you as a parapalegic. Although, they will show up if you suddenly get up and walk, but months later when you relapse and are crippled again, no one will show up to do the follow-up story. Magazines, newspapers, TV, it is all the modern mythology that is based, not on sacred religions, but on science. Fact and logic make up the stories that are told today. The mystical is being changed into the "realistic". Not that our realism (in reality shows or government policy)is based on any more fact. Modern culture is adopting science as its foundation, as its new religion, to tell our stories.
3/29/4
According to the ancient Greeks, there were many stages of love. Only one of the five categories was given to Eros, the realm of lust, physical love, and adultry. The emotional type of love was given much more importance. The highest of these forms was Agappe love. It meant the greatest, purest, unconditional love. Some religious leaders have compared agappe love to the love of God-that perfect love no human can attain this life. Where did these stages of love come from? In Greek mythology, the opposite is true. The goddess of love, Aphrodite, is mainly a physical being with Eros (the appointed god of lust)as her attendant. What happened to the other forms of love? Perhaps they only exist in litterature, through the poetry of the muses, or in the arrows of Cupid. However, Cupid is a mischevious character. This does not include the ideas that agappe love contains. As a culture, it appears the Greeks held standards of feelings that they thought could not be achieved, even by divine characters. This phenomenon can indicate a void in Greek mythology, whereas they are extremely detailed in other areas.
3/31/4
Dream visions are a very powerful form of authority. In the Bible, Joseph's ability to interpret dreams helped him be released from jail. Dreams are often discredited because the meanings are hidden in a chaotic barrage of images. Freud was one of the major scientists to place strong emphasis on dreams. Native American stories carry over many of the forms of the subconscious. For instance, the creation story, according to one tribe, is a series of ladders through four worlds in the womb of the earth for four days, which are four years. The sense of time is distorted and cyclical. Perhaps as a culture, Native Americans are closer to understanding dreams than European cultures. After all, if it were up to Freud, we would all be diagnosed for his own sexual frustrations. The older cultures could teach us much more about dream interpretation than any new aged books on the shelf. It could be the next step to unlocking the unconscious.
4/5/4
All this talk about the Appocalypse has brought me to an interesting point. A few years ago I bought a surrealist poster called Appocalypse. This poster condenses the entire book of Revelation into a single image. The interesting thing is that it also incorporates a way of interpreting Revelation. For instance, there is a point in the Bible where it talks about giant metal lions shooting fire (keep in mind this was written 2000 years ago). The poster has one metal lion with fire shooting from its tail, and on the other side a tank in roughly the same shape. Similarly, huge swarms of bugs are compared to helicopters. The Whore of Babylon, the lamb of God, the dragon, and the 4 horsemen are all obvious. However, the first horseman is depicted holding a bow with a modern nuclear weapon as an arrow. The rider from the sky who leads the hosts of heaven can only be seen if you look closely. His head is the sun, his horse blends into the clouds, and his sword is an extention of a beam of light. The Appocalypse poster shows how stories that seem metaphoric can be interpreted for modern times. It also demonstrates how someone years ago might have described the modern world if they had no knowledge of what anything was. All myths have many layers.
4/7/4
We've probably all heard the phrase "Don't judge a book by its cover." Yet a lot of people still make judgments based on appearances. For instance, cases of anarexia and low self-esteem have risen, presumably because of the attractive people depicted on TV. In these times, people can communicate to all different types of people in all different types of ways without every knowing anything about the people they talk to. The Internet is one of the main sources of this phenomenon. No wonder American citizens are told they can be anything they want to be. It is a lot easier to tell someone what you want them to hear when you don't have to talk to them face to face. This system creates a crisis of trust. There is just no way to know what a person is like. But honestly, how did we know in the first place? Authors and actors make a job out of selling fiction. Yes, the nonverbal cues are missing when communicating over distances and more assumptions can be made. At least it can't be taken for granted that our eyes are telling us the truth. Is the person you saw face to face really a blond, or 40, or charming? Surface identity is just as much an issue in the real world. People like to think physical senses are more accurate than obscure communication, but identities have always been easily manipulated.
4/12/4
Looking at The Da Vinci Code, symbolism takes on a whole new meaning. Now granted some of the allusions the author makes to images are a stretch, but there are obvious meanings that can be hidden right out in the open. There are so many objects it would be almost impossible to understand the role all of them play in the world. I do not know a single person that can be that consciously aware at all times. The question that then becomes important is how do we know which symbols play a significant role in our individual lives? Some people have certain symbols that they have been repeatedly drawn to over the years. These symbols become that person's trademark. These symbols could be saying more about a person than that individual knows. On closer examination, a person drawn to the moon may find themselves living in cycles of light and dark that have close ties to myths of Diana. It is not wise to accept all the notions that are tied to certain symbols, but to question the elements of life will develop a new kind of knowledge about the world.
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