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The Nature of Life and the use of Myth as a map for life. Imagine you wake up one day on a sailing vessel. You have no recollection of boarding and you have no knowledge of where you are at or where the ship should be heading. Perhaps you begin to look for the crew. In the process, you find there is no crew and that your fellow passengers literally and figuratively are in the same boat. Squabbles may break out over who in charge or who should be in charge. But it eventually dawns on everyone that the ship is at peril because it is being buffeted, uncontrolled by a crew, by the tides, currents, and winds. Whether any of you are good or not, you all have to take a crash course in learning, more or less effectively, how to sail. After a while, you all begin to resemble a crew as you collectively gain proficiency with the rudder and the sails. Pretend this is you busy in getting an education or training for a career or profession. There is still the question of where the ship is and where is it going. There is the question of ship stores that may break out into a fight. Some want to eat as much of the food and drink as they want day to day. Others may be more cautious. They may raise the question of whether the ship is supposed to be on a short voyage or a long one. If it is a long one, ship's stores might need to be conserved. Perhaps an argument breaks out about whether it is or is not a short voyage until someone gets everyone's attention. Nobody knows for sure and the ship is still in peril no matter how well the crew now manages to sail it because they don't know how to locate where they are and they don't know where they are supposed to be going. A search turns up two things. The ship has a compass. No matter which way the ship is heading the compass always points in the same direction. Imagine the compass being your conscience (your basic innate knowledge of right and wrong, of virtues and vices). Still, by itself, it is not of much help if you don't know where you are and where you are supposed to be going. Then it is noticed that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west during the day and there are stars at night. Again, this additional piece of information, like the compass, might be helpful but together they are not enough. Finally, one finds the maps that mark out the ship's course. With the maps, the ship's compass and the stars overhead can guide the voyage. With the maps, the crew knows how long the voyage might be, where they came from, where they are at now, and where they are going. Now the maps are myths - the stories that put you in the picture about life, the world, you and your connection to the rest of the world. (Anon) |
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