In my previous essay ‘Mythos is vast — and necessary’ I have presented the case that the state of affairs of mind based on storytelling has a hierarchy of excellence, the top of which is our capability for Mythos.
As questions and asks kept on pouring in I have decided to extend the presentation of mythos with this following essay.
Specifically, the aim is to provide a sort of roadmap to work with the concept of mythos. I wrote ‘a sort of’ of roadmap, because ultimately the roadmap has to be constructed by each and every individual mind in the process of becoming. Also, the roadmap is at best an approximation, and that is as it should be, since the very ambiguity of the roadmap is what allows it to be a malleable, soft and pliable trail winding within one’s mind and applicable in one’s life. Absolutely no-one can create a roadmap for another, suggestions and valid approximations are only the pointers to an effective ‘sort of’ roadmap.
Let it be said that there are no fixed rules nor rigid guidelines to mythos creation and so mythopoesis is a soft science, or a flowing art if we like.
Moreover, to my mind the very plasticity of mind, cognitive openness to the flow, reflective allowance for the river of sensations and depths of impressions are what allow the mythos to thrive.
There is a beauty to this process, an aesthetic of impermanence permitting the mind to unshackle itself from its pasts and presenting itself to itself as a current presence. The immediacy of being as experienced by each individual sentient being performs continuously in the theater of the mind, a performance described by its story and motivated by its mythos. Therefore, there exists a continuous interaction between story and mythos, between experience and actuation.
As presented before, the composite experience of being is continuously updated and redacted, and so the story of ‘selves’ as personas operating in tandem constantly and uninterruptedly restructures and re-organizes itself. That is the very nature of the roadmap, it unfolds as one walks it. The roadmap reveals itself as a clear day uncovers after a cloudy period.
The topography of our minds is a complex tableau, with scenes upon scenes, hidden characters and a plethora of colored sensations all flowing as an ensemble in concert, this we call ‘our lives’.
To contain all these images, representations and descriptions in a coherent whole is the very ‘raison d’etre’ of the mythos.
An approximate roadmap:
“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don’t we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we’re partisans of liberty, then it’s our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
J.R.R. Tolkien
Given that the mythos is ultimately private we need start a roadmap construct by the personal point of view or perspective, the very foundation of a mind’s worldview. Given that the perspective of an individual even if similar to some extent to others is in principle unique, it can be considered a brand. A personal, unique and unmistakable brand, brand ‘ME’.
Our perspectives are a kind of brand. In a manner of speaking every single identifiable object or subject within our perception field is branded with our perspectives. That in fact is the meaning of ‘my perspective’! our minds recognize themselves/ourselves by the brand name ‘me’.
That is a crucial issue to realize when constructing a mythos roadmap.
Mythos is always constructed top down and always from first principles.
As first principles go, approximation , or the principle of approximation is the first to take into consideration.
If perspective (and its derivatives perception and sight) is the beginning, then the first applicable principle is the principle of approximation.
Approximation is the fundamental state of affairs of the mind. (bear in mind that all my statements, particularly those that appear provocative are provisional and approximations at best).
Approximations are per definition the only result we can ever have for our perceptual mechanism.
Approximation, built of the three pillars of uncertainty, ambiguity and equivocalities imply if so that the very foundation of perspective is unstable. It is unstable and uncertain, ambiguous and most importantly indefinite.
We have already grown beyond whatever we have words for; in all talking there lies a grain of contempt … The speaker has already vulgarized himself by speaking.
F. Nietzsche
As Nietzsche famously quipped, we are vulgar beings, if only for the fact that we try to put into words that which we have already surpassed in experience. Critically I believe, it is not so much the words trying to define the undefinable but the words trying to make finite, stable and solid, that which is ambiguous, unstable and uncertain.
The mythos roadmap if so, we can look at as ‘a taking charge of our own biography’ whilst living it. Taking great care of not becoming a barbarian on the way.
Hence the necessary acceptance and allowance for the approximation principle.
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
When allowing for the principle of approximation and in so doing, implying the uncertain nature of realities composing our experience we need construct a root, a basis or an origin story. As indeed all mythopoesis does.
One should be aware at this stage of personal mythopoesis that the ‘story of truth’ and the ‘truth of the story’ are not to be confused. One deals with so called ‘facts of the matter’ the other deals with the embedding of these so called ‘facts’ in the storytelling mechanism of our minds.
In Mythos as the organizing principle of our stories, many issues will appear as if contradicting each other, be it thoughts or sensations, ideas or desires. Entertaining all of them simultaneously, as Fitzgerald quote above states, is the way to go. However, the process is far from simple and the trick is to use the principle of approximations.
Simply remembering that the ‘truths’ ‘ideas’ ‘desires’ and so on do not represent stable ‘fact’ but approximations will allow our minds the necessary plasticity of thought to contain (and entertain) the many apparent contradictions.
The question that can now be asked is as follows: “if all is in motion (as Flow) and the reality of the flow is inherently an approximation, ambiguous and unstable, uncertain and fuzzy, how is one to discriminate and see, create or construct the road ahead? (which is an actual question a reader/friend sent me).
I am of the mind that this question should be the leading interrogation issue when a mind self reflects on the nature of her becoming process.
The short (approximate) answer is to build oneself a mythos.
A dynamic, relevant and immediate super story of freedom’s desire committed timelessly as passion to a direction of becoming.
And yet to tackle this most difficult question we need allow for the fact that there is no direct and straight answer, an approximation is all that can be given after the ellipsis of immediacy ends. That which discriminates is an ever-evolving mind set, so in a sense when we must move beyond the linguistic beingness of the human, into the realm of composite experience we need three (basic) tools of mind.
All three of them involve joy.
The joy of becoming free — in which one musters the courage of being an independent, passionate human.
The Joy of commitment — in which one develops the responsibility and patience of moving towards freedom.
And the joy of direction through which inner freedom becomes an ever-increasing engine of meaning creation.
I think I shall continue the elaboration on this post in the next essay, for now I need a short note on Joy.
Contrary to the common folkloristic and quaintly erroneous belief that happiness is a goal of life, I maintain that joy is the correct way to think about one’s life. No one to my knowledge presented it better than Rollo May:” Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as a being of worth and dignity, who is able to affirm his being, if need be, against all other beings and the whole inorganic world.”
Thank you for reading. If all goes well, I shall try and continue this writing.
