MindsBase

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Reading an old favorite, Thoreau’s Life Without Principle, I came across this passage. Does this remind you of today??

Swap out the words “post office” and “letters” with “net” and “status updates” and there you go:

Just so hollow and ineffectual, for the most part, is our ordinary conversation. Surface meets surface. When our life ceases to be inward and private, conversation degenerates into mere gossip. We rarely meet a man who can tell us any news which he has not read in a newspaper, or been told by his neighbor; and, for the most part, the only difference between us and our fellow is that he has seen the newspaper, or been out to tea, and we have not.

In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correstpondence, has not heard from himself this long while.

(paragraphs and emphasis added.)

Can it be that we haven’t come anywhere, socially speaking, since 1854? Hmm.

(Yes, I note the irony that I’m posting this as a blog post on the net.)

I love reading myths and legends. Wanna know why?

1. I enjoy the similarities between the stories of ancient peoples — in spite of their living in differing societies.

2. Myths are so rich in symbolism!

While the Greek and Roman myths get a lot of airtime, I particularly enjoy other ancient myths such as Asian or American Indian folklore.

This Nisqually Legend is a great one:

Long ago, people ate all the fish and game and so started eating each other. This was wickedness, so the Changer sent a flood to the earth.

Only one woman and one dog survived and repeopled the earth, but those people were primative, walking on four legs and living in holes in the earth. The had no tools or clothes.

Then, a giant bear with hypnotic powers came and started eating everyone.

So the Changer sent a Spirit Man with a face like the sun who also had powers. The Spirit Man modernized the people with techniques for fire and tools and clothing, after he taught them to walk on two legs.

He also told them that there were two powerful spirits, one good, one evil, and the Good Spirit had sent him.

He then went about the task of killing the bear (using seven arrows, symbolic of completeness) and doling out the valuable skin.

Then, Spirit Man made a house with one door and put all the disease and evil deeds inside it, then tasked the head man of a certain family to protect and never open the door. Generations later, only one old man, his wife and his daughter were the guardians. One day while he was away, the man’s daughter peeked inside the door and so let out all the sorrows of the world.

Stories help unite a people. Help them speak a common tongue. It makes you wonder — what are the stories that unite us as a people, as well as tying us together with the rest of humanity, past and present?

And, are we losing these common stories?