That Which I Have Learned

That Which I have Learned

Its not very often that I have a hard time “b-s”-ing a paper.  If you are any type of English or writing major, you know the drill: put on some mindless music and type a few pages of insightful, snotty reflection that will make you stand out from all the other snotty English majors. And, if you BS hard enough, your professor might even consider your snotty writing as witty, and then you’ve really struck the intellectual jackpot.  

However, for the first time since I entered the world of formal education, I had a really hard time spouting out crap that rolls off the tongue and puts across ideas that I don’t necessarily believe or care about.  I could have just gone on some huge rant about how mythology has magically solved all of my problems and that now all the stars are aligned and all of life’s questions have been answered.

Well, this time, however, that is not the case. I am going to be honest.

Isn’t that funny, that these myths which are popularly considered lies are in fact leading to truth?

Ill start by saying this: Mythology is hard.  Its complicated.  It asks the tough questions and answers the questions we don’t want answers to.  Like why Greek men have small butts, or the meaning of “sparagmos”, or all the ways a poor Australian boy can have his manhood sliced and diced. Like we learned from all the initiation rights, “no pain, no gain”.  The people who still practice these rituals might have something over us.  While we are growing up in a 100% organic, helmet-obsessed, plushy playground culture, we have forgotten that those scrapes and bruises we got as kids (back when things were a nickel) have turned into scars.  Scars tell stories.  They teach lessons that we will never forget.

Myth also makes us rethink the attitudes with which we approach everyday life. All the trials and challenges found in mythology make our daily struggles seem pretty trivial.  Maybe that is why we don’t acknowledge mythology as a truth-  it makes our reality seem less significant. Nonetheless, I would argue that more people need to experience this realization-  that we are small pieces in a huge puzzle, rather than the other way around.

Myth forces us to think deeper.

Heck, it made me think a lot more about why things are the way they are.  It stopped me from being lazy in my reasoning.  Rather than just giving the easy answer of “things are just the way they are because they always have been and ‘they’  say so”, I now find myself responsible for a lot of vital information that I can no longer ignore. Mythology gives mankind a base to explain the most difficult to the simplest of anomalies.  I find it comforting to attribute something to an ancient source rather than just a scientific theory.  While the latter can be argued to be more significant, I ask: what is more significant than history? Or culture? Mythology gives the human race something that we cannot cook up in a lab or write down in a scientific journal.

Mythology has also taught me the importance of listening.  Someone in our class made a brilliant statement about how one might lose an evening listening to a story, but in turn, they gain a lifetime.  While, I must admit, I sometimes find myself nodding off when Dr. Sexton goes into story mode, I can also say that I am often jolted awake by one of his insightful quotes that I feel like I need to frame over my fireplace.  Wisdom is something one cannot skim over on Sparknotes, or gain in a quick exchange of greetings on the street.  It takes time.  I guess you could say that myth has also taught me to be patient.  Over the hundreds of years that passed before we heard these myths, their truths were gaining the validity and knowledge that comes with old age.   How could we expect to understand them if we don’t take the time to listen? They have lifetimes of wisdom under their metaphorical belts, and who are we to give them any less time than they require?  Even by spending time in class listening to the stories of my peers,  I find  myself looking at people differently.  As a society, we have been conditioned to believe that all we need to know about a person we can learn on a speed date, or over a text, or through a Facebook picture.  I have learned that this is no way to truly understand a person.  To really get to know someone’s soul, you have to take the time to listen to the stories that have shaped who they are.

This class has become so much more than a blog post, or an attendance point, or a snotty paper.  It has truly been a learning experience that I will not soon forget.  It has helped me realize that mythology has always been and is will always be. And that, is what I have learned.

What you might or might not have missed

There were a few clues that gave away my story that you might have picked up on:

Peter= Prometheus
wings= stolen fire
boss= Zeus
Buffalo Wild Wings= Olympus
abdominal pain due to wings= eagle eating Prometheus' liver every day as punishment




A tad more painful than some indigestion, huh?

Displaced Myth

The Story of the Forbidden Wings of Fire


There was once an eager and unassuming teenage boy named Peter.  Now, Peter, being in a state of perpetual hunger for all things unhealthy and spicy, was driving through his town in search for something to quench his starvation. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a small sign in the window of Buffalo Wild Wings: "NEWEST, MOST SPICY AND AMAZING WINGS EVER CREATED IN THE UNITED STATES TO BE REVEALED TONIGHT".  Peter nearly crashed into the next car after reading this proclamation from the hot wing gods.  How could he be the first to get his hands on these fiery morsels? He, the connoisseur of wings, would die if he was not the first to try them. Peter quickly realized that this was not okay, and therefore devised a plan.

He knew one of the employees, so after chatting with him for a bit, he convinced his friend to distract the boss by one of the T.V.s while Peter snuck into the the kitchen to snatch a monumental wing.

Peter's, accomplice successfully lured his unassuming boss to check on a T.V. that had magically stopped working (with the help of him unplugging it).  As the boss was turning his back on the kitchen, Peter sprinted towards the vat of beautiful, saucy wings, and eagerly grabbed one and swallowed it whole. After doing so, Peter casually strolled out of the establishment.

While driving home, Peter, still floored by the incredible spiciness and flavor of his successful wing operation, began to notice a sharp pain in his abdomen. The pain began to intensify until he could not longer drive.  This lasted for a few hours than finally let up. Peter was relived, but the next day, the same pain persisted once again.  Days went by, and he continued to experience the same excruciating pain every evening in the same spot at the same time.

One day, while reeling in pain, he heard a radio announcement:

ATTENTION, IF YOU, OR ANYONE YOU KNOW HAS CONSUMED ONE OF THE NEWLY-RELEASED WINGS FROM BUFFALO WILD WINGS IN THE PAST WEEK, PLEASE SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION.  INDIVIDUALS HAVE COMPLAINED OF INTENSE LIVER PAINS SINCE EATING ONE OF THESE WINGS. SIDE EFFECTS HAVE PROVEN TO BE PERMANENT.

Peter's punishment for stealing the wings suddenly became very clear.

Stories give rise to tradition, imagination,and reflection

I obviously procrastinate.

This means that I have not written a blog post in quite a while now.  HOWEVER, who would have thought that the past couple blogs I've missed happen to connect to each other beautifully in one magnificent mega-post?

Well, I definitely didn't, and frankly, I am extremely thankful that they do.

So, here it goes.

There was a passage in the Storyteller that really stood out to me:

"Going back in time from trousers and a tie to a loincloth and tattoos, from Spanish to the agglutinative crackling of Machiguenga, from reason to magic and from a monotheistic religion or Western agnosticism to pagan animism, is a feat hard to swallow, though still possible, with a certain effort of imagination." (244)

I m a g i n a t i o n

Llosa artfully sums up the root problem of today's lack of culture.  We need to engage our imaginations.

If we take a look at initiation rights, (I was assigned the Aboriginal "walkabout") we can see that it takes quite a bit of imagination to follow through with the outlandish and sometimes painful rituals.  Although the cultures in which they take place are nestled in present-day society, they still have found a way to stay true to their heritage.  Like Llosa says, it is a "feat hard to swallow".  What these groups of people do to remain loyal to their ancient ties to history is no easy task, and it requires them to go against the grain.  Sometimes, however, outsiders continue to push "progress" on their authenticity until it is no longer existent.

Diversity is losing its place in a world of assimilation.

While many might argue that it is a good thing that only a select few continue to participate in body-scarring, horrific circumcisions,  and even extreme wilderness excursions, could there be something we are missing? I mean, the people who take part in these initiation rights are human too--they can feel pain.  So, why do they keep doing it?

I would say that we have developed a lack of the imaginative spirit that powers ritual-practicing peoples. This imagination not only inspires them to keep tradition alive, but it also exposes them to a new level of dedication-- a concept that could really benefit our society of wishy-washy individuals.  In the case of the Aboriginals, their walkabouts were spiritual journeys based on the very stories of their spiritual leaders and ancestors.  How else is one compelled to take that journey without a little imagination?

If we can learn anything from these people of "loincloth and tattoos", it would be that to fully connect to ones rich history and culture, one must simply imagine the stories of his past into existence.

No Pain, No Gain

Throughout mythology, pain is used as a tool as well as for entertainment.  It teaches mythical characters about sacrifice and consequence.  I can relate with these victims of pain, and it all starts with two words:

Razor Scooter.

Yup. A child's plaything was the avenue to my 5 and a half months of pain and sacrifice.  I found a scooter 2 days before the end of my freshman year here at MSU.  I loved that thing. I rode it everywhere I could, despite the shaking of heads of my fellow young adults. TOO BAD, I thought.  I get to relive my childhood and you DON'T.

Then I crashed and broke my foot.



So, that was the start of my summer of limping, hopping and turning down fun hiking trips.





Here is the 2-month recovery plan my doctor put me on after I had already been in a boot for 3 months









BUT, I did learn alot about patience and also got really good at cooking. So maybe it takes as much as a broken fourth metatarsal to make one stop and relax.

The Cycle of History

I chose to analyze a passage from page 249:

"Everything repeats itself, everything comes back again, but always with some slight twist in its meaning: in the modern age the group of initiates becomes the police force.  And there is always some tiny territory untouched by the anthropologists' fine-tooth comb that survives, like an archaic island, in the modern word: thus is is that antiquity we come across the emissaries of a reality that was to unfold more than two thousand years later."

Calasso makes a really cool point here.

Basically, he emphasizes that the events that took place so long ago continue to repeat themselves, and every time they do, we gain a new piece of valuable information.  Greek mythology not only explains why things are the way they are (the "reality that was to unfold"), but it also paves the way for new interpretation.  Events don't literally have to occur again, but maybe, by studying history over and over again, one can find bits of knowledge that have been overlooked.

Pelasgian Creation Myth

I was assigned the greek Pelasgian Creation Myth to share with the class, and might I say, it was pretty entertaining!

So Eurynome, the supreme creatitrix of all things, rises from Chaos and decides that she wants to dance on the waves.  Dance! So, she splits the sky and sea.  While shes dancing, she catches the wind in her hand and rubs it together between her palms, creating Ophion, the serpent.  Well, Eurynome has the hots for the serpent, and therefore turns into a dove and sleeps with him.  After this, she lays a Cosmic Egg.  She orders Ophion to wrap himself around the egg 7 times to incubate it. 

After doing this, the egg splits in half, releasing everything in existence today-  except people.  Ophion starts to get pretty boastful of his creation, and Eurynome doesn't like the lack of spotlight.  So, she kicks Ophion out of Mount Olympus, scattering his teeth in the process.  And, from these teeth came the Pelasgains! 

There where some cool overlaps in this story in relation to other creation myths.  The 7-day process seemed to occur quite often- not jut in the Genesis version.  Also, the use of the serpent seems to be pretty popular as well.  Something I found different about this story was the fact that a godDESS was the creator.  In most stories, a god or male creator does all the work. GIRL POWER!