Chapter 3 Overview
"Our myths stay with us for life and grow up with us, fulfilling psychological needs at every stage of our development"(p.34)
This quote is something I feel like most people can relate to as we all have our own beliefs that we grow up with. Through out our childhood, based off culture, I feel like we hold on to certain myths and past them down from one generation to another. There is a lot of different ways in how certain myths are instilled upon us, and could actually go from a universal myth to personal beliefs. I think that at every stage of our development we do hold onto a myth. For example when we are kids and going through losing our first tooth. Some of us our told the tooth fairy will come at night if we put the tooth under our pillow and bring us money, and take the tooth. We then create a sense of happiness with having a loose tooth. We will start to anticipate the aftermath of the myth of the tooth fairy.
A lot of holidays have a mythological substance as we correlate things like Christmas with Santa Clause, Easter with the Easter bunny, Valentines day with cupid, St. Patricks day with leprechauns, Halloween with witches, etc. I also feel like myths can be cultural and some cultural may not have the same myths as others. My mother is Panamanian which makes me come from a latino cultural. Growing up there are so many myths that I was told at a young age, that later I understood were just myths and not necessarily reality. Things like, you shouldn't iron clothes, then go outside, you shouldn't paint when its raining. Which seem more like superstitions vs. myths. The myth of "la llorona", where if you did something wrong as a child, this ghost like women with a screeching cry would come and take you away. Myths that culturally was universal. As described in chapter three, " all of us have our own personal mythology, which began in early childhood. (Janero & Altshuler, 2011, p. 32)
"Great hero's fail, but their failures only testify to the bigness of their lives"(p.39)
I really like this quote because I believe that everyone at some point has failures, even hero's, and because they do fail, that makes the bigness of their lives greater because that allows us to relate. It gives us even more of a heroic view of them because we too fail. Knowing that someone we look up to, someone we admire someone that we view as a hero, we can have that common ground and connection to feel "they're just like me". Their failures testify to the bigness of their lives because even if they fail, they're hero's so they have done so much for the title of hero, a fail wont over weigh their legacy.
During a lifetime, in order for anyone to get better at anything, failures come with great success. Through a hero's failures we can see how they overcome, our perspective to that will usually be "if they can do it, I can do it". We as humans like to be able to relate, we like to be able to witness if a person goes through issues that are the same as what we go through, how did they gain victory, how did they overcome it, how did they process things, but overall how did they win. Even a failure can lead to great lessons. Which is why the title hero is even given to the hero. It is a matter of what they have overcame that amplifies the bigness of their lives. According to chapter three, "the hero is an archetype found in almost every culture" (Janero & Altshuler, 2011, p. 36).
"Many popular beliefs are quoted without regard to their origins"(p.55)
This quote to me means that sometimes no matter what place you come from certain myths are going to be the same. Common sayings, thoughts, sometimes can be relatable to any origin. I think that there is a lot of universal sayings and myths. Things such as, "what goes around comes around", "to each its own", "don't knock it till you try it", "mother nature", "There's always room at the top", "us vs. them", etc. I feel like no matter what background you come from, these types of sayings are quoted regardless to any origin.
We as humans although different will somehow universally have the same thought process. We will always be able to have relativity. With our verbiage we can see that we do have similar quotable common myths we believe. These myths will always influence us. As far as interaction, we can agree that if we all do have a common ground of popular beliefs, we may be all more similar than we think. Despite the fact that our origins may be different there is still things that connect us and can make us have similarities. Popular beliefs create actions as well. If we think a certain way we will then act a certain way. According to chapter three, " Much of what we say and how we react to certain situations has roots in mythology, both past and present." (Janero & Altshuler, 2011, p. 55).
References:
Janero R. & Altshuler T., (2011) The art of being human: the humanities as a technique of living, (eleventh edition) Pearson.
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