Mythed again

I have spent more time thinking about myths and have come to what could be a startling conclusion. I'm not saying that what I have come up with is all that revolutionary, but that I'd be shocked if it ends up that this concludes my thinking about it.

I was in a meeting today and my co-worker made reference to the "myth of the pioneer." Note that this does not recall a specific event or person who lived on the prairie. The stories about life way back then have sort of come together and provided us with a general summary or shorthand to help us think about an era or a group. And a quick look online shows that the phrase "the myth of" is used online some 28 million times. Somehow, if you remove the word "Greek" from the results, the phrase is used 108 million times.

Everything, it seems, is a myth.

Charter schools, alzheimers, Lilith, fingerprints, independent voters, mean girls, Samhain, racist Republicans etc.

It seems like everything is a myth. And this leads me to my conclusion.

Nothing has actually ever happened and nothing actually really exists. It isn't my fault you believe in the myth of Descartes.


Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

mythos (pl, sing mytho)

I was sitting in the car this morning, explaining to my daughter about the word narcissistic and its connection to Greek mythology (didn't I know all this stuff already by the time I was her age?) and a thought hit me. Bam, it said.

The cultural myths from many cultures seem to share a particular theme -- explaining elements of the natural world by tying them to events or people in the myth. How did the elephant get its trunk, the giraffe its long neck, or the zebra its stripes? Read the cultural myth. How did Devil's Tower come to be? Read the story from the Native Americans. Why is that constellation shaped that way, or does that flower grow that way? Read about the mythological characters who inspired that natural thing.

So I aimed that lens at my own culture and I discovered something -- Jewish cultural myths do not seem purposed to explain elements of the natural world. They aim to explain the behavior of people. What is the Amaleki mindset? Why do liars act the way they do? Torah stories rarely give the origins of things, but of nations.

Now I could be wrong, and if you ask certain people, odds are I am wrong, but what's important is that I'm not wrong. Unless I am.

Behold the beholder

Sometimes we run into people who are truly beautiful - model beautiful. These are the people who leave others on campus with their mouths hanging open. The ones all the mortals are afraid to approach and whose entrance into a room forces conversations into jealous silences and makes stolen glances legal tender. In the workplace they inspire a combination of fear and lust and at school they become the focal point for a thousand excuses. Why take this class, join this club or sit in that part of the library? Because maybe, just maybe, that divine being will see me and lightning will strike and somehow I will connect with him or her. They are the objects of myriad Mitty-esque fantasies and yet their true personality remains a mystery. And then, years later, people sit around and wonder "where are they now?" "How did someone so perfect fit into everyday life?" "Did that model find another model and have model babies?"

So for those who wonder about that, I just want you to know

I'm right here.


by the way, this was
Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

I mall tired out

I found myself at the mall today. I guess I didn't find myself there. I drove myself there intentionally. Anyway, while I was there, I realized a few things. First, time spent wandering at the mall could be better used doing most anything else. Second, mall time is dangerous for me because it gives me time to let my mind wander and get cynical impressions about most everything and this leads to sneering and nasty comments. And when I'm alone, and I start mumbling, eventually, security has to get involved.

Next, if you aren't buying something for your cell phone (or aren't a cell phone yourself) or don't need clothes or mall food, the mall is pretty boring. A huge chunk of the stores sell clothes and upscale accessories for parts of my body I didn't know I had. I saw the massage kiosk (because when I want to relax, i go to the mall). I saw the navel piercing station (nothing like an Orange Julius and a hole in your body). I saw fancy cars parked indoors, stores selling nothing but perfume, or Legos or hats (or some combination of those three). I saw the mindless consumers weaving in and out of retailers who were all selling the same things just with different labels on them. I saw conformity personified selling itself as individualism.

The sad part was that I didn't want to buy anything. There I was, with cash in pocket, a checkbook handy and 3 credit cards, all ready to be amazed and driven into a frenzy of spending. I bought a bargain book and a replacement set of earphones, plus a little plastic screen cover for my phone. Woo-hoo.

I can't figure out if it is that the stores have nothing for me or that I simply am at a point where I don't really need much. Or maybe I'm just cheap. I'm not sure, but the whole experience was really worthless. I could have stayed home if I wanted to feel empty.

I'm a tame and sane guy

I write this as a fan of Steve Martin so I cannot lay claim to being unbiased, but what happened recently at the Y is ridiculous. Mr. Martin. Pardon me, Mr. Steve Martin, was discussing his latest book with Deborah Solomon when the web audience decided that he wasn't being the Steve Martin they wanted so they tweeted or emailed or did whatever it is that they did to send him a message demanding that he talk about something they wanted to hear about. Now, I am fully conversant with the consumer based economy and I know that we all get sad when we shell out eight million dollars for tickets to the Dinosaurs of Rock and they don't play our favorite hit from forty years ago, but at some point we will have to admit that WE DON'T OWN CELEBRITIES. Sure, they make their living making us smile, laugh, cry, move or think but we can't expect them to respond to our every whim like some sort of marionette. The true Steve Martin fan has one of two choices: either go to every performance and appearance and love him for his ability to change and grow, or stay at home listening to his LP's over and over and laughing at all the same jokes which , I heartily admit, are brilliant and funny. One can either read his new book and follow him around the country as he promotes that which makes him new and different, or watch The Absent Minded Waiter. Yes it is genius, and if that's what you want, then go for it, but don't demand that he stops being a real human being.

Now clearly, Mr. Steve Martin does not need my defense of him. His recent OpEd in the NYT makes his case brilliantly (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/05/opinion/05martin.html). And surely I could rant about how the technology which we have access to is not only shortening our attention span but giving us a false sense of control over our world but I am simply going to end by pointing out that Picasso was brilliant through many stages and it would have been a real loss to the world had someone who was a fan of his early work stood over his shoulder as he moved into more adventurous work and demanded that he stay within a tried and true style.

Yes, we run the risk of not liking everything our idols touch, but the return is well worth it when we discover a talent which is not locked in by time or limited by two dimensions.

One is a lonely number

I was watching a TV show on public television, all about the New Jersey Turnpike. The narrators and the various experts reflected on how the turnpike somehow represented an American ethos or something. They blathered on about how there was a code of the highway and the egalitarian nature of this project made America strong and crystallized the identity of the New Jersey psyche.

One thing they said was that part of that code of the highway dictated that the truck lanes were for real men and only less-than-real-men use the "cars only" lanes. Now I have driven (and been driven) on the turnpike for 35 years and I have never heard that line. I live in New Jersey as do all of my neighbors here in New Jersey and none of them had ever heard of that. It got me thinking, and that's never a good idea.

And another thing...when I listen to the radio business reports the reporter tells about "the market" and what "it" does as if the traders all get together and vote on a course of action and a reason for it, then act in unison and file a report. It just doesn't happen that way.

You see, there is no singular collective voice that can be caught and printed on bumper stickers. The mass consciousness is really all about a bunch of individuals none of whom has an opinion that anyone would care about were anyone to speak with this individual one on one. All of these phantom groupthink ideas are the projected ideals of the sociologists who report on them and the wishful philosophers who need to claim they have their fingers on a pulse which doesn't really exist. We can't know what we all think because we don't all think and if we did we wouldn't all share what we think or even get any sort of summary of all the things we think. And we certainly don't agree.

Lost skills in America

and another thing...
when was the last time you pulled out a paper map and tried to read it? I do frequently because I'm a fan of the map but I see the following as lost arts or arts we will lose soon.
1. map folding. gone the way of newspaper folding for easy reading on the subway
2. map printing
3. map reading

I went to a driver of a class truiip and asked him if he wanted my set of printed directions. He said "no thanks...I have a GPS." So maybe I should include "preparing for a trip by reviewing directions" to my list.

Will we become so dependent on GPS devices and directions that we won't even be able to find our around the block without a soothing voice reminding us to take a right turn in 300 feet? Will those crazy people who go orienteering no longer need a compass and map because their cell phones will tell them what to do and where to go? Don't we need to be able to read a map, find a street and judge distances on our own? It is bad enough that students insist they don't need to learn to spell because of spell check, but will a 2nd grade geography class begin with "OK kids, now log onto google earth"?