February 23, “An Inconvenient Truth: Is Global Warming Affecting Nature Myths?”
Check out the Roundtable page for details.
I have already received a little criticism about this event, so let me just clarify: In my mind, there is no debate about global warming. What I want to explore is myth’s relationship to the effect: are the myths changing, or is the mythic fighting back?
Joseph Campbell says throughout all his works that the moment a myth is concretized as fact, it is killed. So if we revere Campbell, follow him as if he were an archetypal god, aren’t we, in a way, concretizing his myth as fact? In a way, isn’t the very study of Campbell’s work killing the myth he himself created? I’m going to call it: Campbell’s Paradox.
Every year, when the new season of American Idol launches, I catch myself singing a little differently to the tunes in my car, as if I were on the show. I find it sickingly entertaining, and have been one of the millions to vote every week with the hopes that my American Idol would win. (Of course, it hasn’t and I have been forced to choose another Idol.)
What does it say about our entertainment industry that we have to have a reality show to choose our “Idol”? Why can’t musicians climb up the Idol ladder and earn their Idol status the way they had to 40 years ago? The Beatles didn’t simply become Idols. They had to work for it (and based on the interviews about the Hamburg years, it sounds like they really worked). Has entertainment become so cookie-cutter that the industry will choose someone who will earn $$$ rather than letting talent speak for itself? What happened to the music?
I have the luxury of living in a town focused highly on its music, and defines its identity as being a “music capitol”. Every night, the clubs are filled with at least one live band, some local garage band just trying to make it big. Perhaps it’s not big in the American Idol sense, but it does take a lot of balls to perform in a club on a regular basis, to make one’s career one’s music, to stay true to the art form. Some of those local bands might get a break and get out of our wicked little town, and some may never receive recognition beyond being a local favorite. Isn’t that okay?
Why does entertainment have to be as much a corporate whore as the rest of our society? Why does the business of escaping the horrors of life have to be fueled by the same devilish, greedy goal as the rest of the country?
Can’t we just have a break?
10
It makes me sad how quickly
hot things go cold.
A few times a day
I look forward to the toasty
warmth of my nourishment.
But before I eat half of it,
the warmth has left it,
altering the flavor.
I eat it anyway, remembering
the first few bites,
the warmth on my tongue,
the steam up my nose,
relishing in my nostalgia.
Then before I know it,
it is gone.
As a myth student, I hear all the major thinkers, mostly men, comment on how the myth of Perceival and the Holy Grail symbolizes our cultural myth. Which makes sense, because we so often seem to be questing for something or another. I recently heard an excellent recording my psychoanalyst Robert Johnson, The Golden World, in which he makes the comment that Perceival is really only a myth for men because it so nicely represents the male model of the psyche (see Johnson, He). The female equivalent, according to Johnson in this recording, is Perceival’s wife, Blanchfleur, who represents the loyal, faithful, dutiful wife who waits at home for her knight in shining armor to return to her.
I think that in actuality, the female myth in my society is governed by Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. This is the story wherein a young woman has to choose between marrying for love or for economics, and finds the both in the character of Mr. Darcy. The feminine quest appears more internal than that of the masculine, more introverted, because the feminine myth is one of home-building and protecting the castle. This is not to say that this model is restricted to only female protagonists, but I will cover that on another day.
In addition to several movie renderings, Pride & Prejudice has been completely updated in Bridget Jones’ Diary, which peaked in popularity at the same time as another, more indirect, updating: Sex and the City. Both story lines follow women in their 30s trying to find love in a market that suggests that love is only for the 20-somethings. Of course, in both tellings, the women find someone to love, either a Mark Darcy or a Mr. Big. In the case of Sex and the City, economics is not the primary push, as all the women are relatively economically stable, but it does help fuel the decision.
I have not seen Desperate Housewives, but I can only assume that it is Pride & Prejudice 2: After the Marriage, giving us an insight to whether happiness can come from the decision to marry for love or economics, if you are not lucky enough to marry for both.
I am of the age right between Elizabeth Bennet and Bridget Jones. It is very easy for me to identify these myths because they represent the phase of life I am currently in myself. I know one thing for sure: I am not looking for a Holy Grail.
This past week, my Ritual Studies class participated in a ritual “experiment” wherein we each brought a significant item to the class and constructed a mythic experience around the objects we each brought. It was a fantastic experiement, and one I might replicate for my RoundTable.
One of my cohorts, however, parted companies with her item on her journey to class. The item was her sorority pen, which traditionally is passed from sister to sister, and had seen quite a history. I cannot help but wonder whether the item is indeed “lost”, or if it was time for my friend to symbollicaly “let it go” and move on with her myth.
I hold the belief that when we lose something that is not easily found, then the aid/guidance/comfort offered by that particular object is no longer applicable. I, too, have often parted ways with various significant objects. Some make it back to me years after I have long forgotten their significance. Others I never see again. The culture that surrounds me, and - I dare presume - my cohort as well is one of rapid symbol movement. We travel from myth to myth faster than teenager girls go through seasonal fashions. I attribute this movement to the fact that we have more exposure to a wide variety of mythic experiences, and many of us believe that we have to try them all out and see which one fits.
I don’t support the idea that a mythology is a shoe. It will either fit, or it won’t fit, and you’ll know before you engage in it whether or not it is right. Myth is magical like that.
Today I learned that I need to avoid my school’s breakfast sausage. It is yummy, but very greasy. It did not settle well with my stomach, which eventually altered my mood enough that I had to retreat to my room and go through a minor cleansing ritual to get things balanced again.
Today I sat through a lecture about myth and the body. One of the points of the lecture was that the cultural attitude towards the body is equivalent to the same culture’s attitude to the earth. I know that the earth has been a hot topic in the last couple years with the debate over global warming. Meanwhile, the health of the people of our country has likewise been a growing concern with the debate over the obesity epidemic.
I realize that my country does not have a clear stance towards body image. On the one had the media suggests that everyone should look at certain way at all costs. On the other, there is much catering towards larger people, almost supporting the growing size of the general population.
Argument A - The Thin Image
This image is proliferated by the media that being thin is good. It seems to me that the added dimension to this message is that a woman should be thin, blonde, perhaps a bit tan, with perfect teeth, and I am not too certain what the message is for men. This thinness is to be achieved by surgery and extreme dieting. Excerise helps, but I do not see it popping into the media artifacts as much as surgery or dieting. If one is not already meeting this ideal image, the process of moving into this image involves a full archetypal shift, changing the bodily frame that houses our myth-making soul.
Argument B - The Just Be Yourself Image
As best as I can tell, this image is a response to the so-called obesity epidemic, which is a different discussion altogether. Rather than tackle the issue fully, companies are restructuring their products to accomdate. Example 1: A few years ago, clothing companies shifted their sizing numbers for women’s clothing. Clothes that were a size 10 became a size 8, 12 because 10, and so forth. So the size 10 jeans I wear today are techincally the same as the size 12s I wore when I was 15. I makes me wonder if I have accomplished anything with my weight-loss plans. Example 2: Disney recently closed the “It’s a Small World” ride at its domestic parks because the boats could not support weight averaging more than 170lbs. per person. Because of the obesity epidemic, the average weight has been 185-200lbs. per person average, and they are rebuilding a historical ride to accomodate.
My take on this image is that it is a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it is extremely good to give people the sense that it is okay to “just be yourself.” On the other hand, there is a threshold where one crosses into the realm of risking serious health damage. I do not agree with this, because the body is our vessel, a virtually sacred object. No human alive can mythologize their personal story without the body.
So the mixed message is indicitive of the cultural attitude of the earth. The attitude associated with Argument A is one of change and conservation, because it uses overall less energy. Argument B is one of excess. Use and deplete, and repeat without regard to how it affects the overall health of the planet. What I haven’t decided yet is whether either attitude is actually beneficial or not. I have yet to observe any collective attempt to fix any of our environmental problems in the long-term, only short-term fixes. A lack of mythological, metaphorical exercise.
One element of my mythic journey is a monthly pilgrimage to California to attend graduate seminar classes. Inevitably, something goes wrong, usually my flight is delayed/cancelled or I eat something completely wrong and am somewhat ill for the rest of the trip.
In the case of the latter, I have finally accepted that I have a problem eating certain saturated fats, oils and nuts. It is not a pleasant experience when my tummy contradicts my oral sensors, and changing my diet has not been all that simple. I live in a household that loves cheese, mayo, peanut butter on occasion, more cheese… I have to change the entire household’s diet! On my current trip, I am trying to watch those evil foods, or at least trying to identify the evil foods so I can avoid them next time. So far, the airplane snack box, tuna salad with fries, and pizza are okay. But I didn’t overdue the tuna salad because it was on grilled sourdough bread, which was affecting my enjoyment after awhile.
This trip, I will also stay away from the complementary coffee. I will only drink what I need and use the rest of the time to drink water. I need that more this holiday season than a nice, hot, steamy cup of espresso.
Every year, I am among the many who make New Year’s resolutions. I have not yet decided why I bother, considering how I either forget them by February or never start actively working towards them. One year I resolved to re-read the entirety of Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles. I got half way through The Vampire Lestat before I gave up. Sometimes I will even resolve to lose weight or better myself in some fashion. Of course, it never quite happens.
This year is really no exception. I have resolved to get my diet (vices) under control, to get a new job, and to possibly publish my behemoth project sitting on my desk. Fairly reasonable resolutions, I would think. My hope is that if I am actively blogging about them, maybe I will keep them. Notice how I conveniently have waited until 5 days into the new year to start this process. I think I have gotten all of the holiday eating out of the way and around my middle.
All of this is a part of my attempt to more consciously live my myth. Carl Jung once asked himself what myth he was living. He found his answer by building his house in Zürich. I have asked myself the same question, and the best answer is that I will live my myth through words. Only time will tell in which direction the words will guide me.