Human beings have distinguished themselves from the rest of the animal kingdom by their ability to have ideas that go beyond their everyday experience. We are meaning-seeking beings.
And it’s from this center that we all come from and where we shall all return. Our voyage to this life is but a spec of dust in the greater scheme of things. Let’s enjoy the little things.
Human beings easily fall into deep emotional turmoil, and from the very beginning, we invented stories that enabled us to see ourselves amidst a larger setting, that might reveal an underlying pattern, and thus give us a sense that life had meaning and value.
Part of the human experience is the ability to have ideas and experiences that cannot be explained rationally. We have imagination, a faculty that allows us to think of something that does not exist, when we first conceive it, it has no concrete existence.
Imagination, is actually the human faculty that gives birth to religion and mythology. Imagination has enabled science, religion and technology, just like mythology.
Mythology is not about creating stories outside of our world, but about enabling us to live more intensely and purposefully in it.
Prehistoric graves give us a glimpse about myths: they are rooted in the fear of extinction (hello climate change!); they are inseparable with ritual; they push us to the limits of human life and they are about the unknown, that which has no words; and they also show us how we should behave, how to take right action.
We’re all caught up with going about our life, doing the daily grind and keeping up with responsibilities. It’s not easy to take time to quiet our minds and listen to our inner wisdom, so we may declutter and think more clearly.
Mythology also speaks of another plane of existence alongside our earthly world. Belief in this invisible world of deities is a basic theme of mythology, it informed the daily rituals of ancient societies before the advent of scientific civilizations.
