Day One: What is a Myth?

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary: "myth \'mith\ n : a legendary narrative that presents part of the beliefs of a people or explains a practice or natural phenomenon."

Some myth characteristics according to my mythology class:

• a story about origins
• has some truth
• good vs. evil, good always wins (I disagree--Heracles, anyone?)
• teaches a moral lesson
• a phenomenal explanation for questions or occurrences
• entertaining

The first thing that comes to mind at the word "myth" is something involving Greek gods putting alligators in the New York sewer system. But obviously, society at large doesn't tend to go for that sort of thing these days. What do we go for instead? Well, science. Myths explain our world with gods and events that seem peculiar and aren't proven. Science explains our world with events that are all perfectly logical and completely proven . . . right?

Back to grade school when you had to find what was wrong with a sentence! So, first part of that sentence. "Events that are all perfectly logical." That's true, isn't it?

Okay, maybe this is just me, but how the heck do remote controls work? I mean, yeah, they send an electrical signal to the TV, but how?Why? How does the TV know which signal it is almost all of the time? How did the signals get there in the first place?

Here's another doozy: magnets. Right, there's a north and south end that are somehow north and south no matter which way the magnet is facing. There's some crazy exchange of electrodes, which we can't see or even prove exist, and this makes the gray thingie stick to your fridge and spoon and some metals, but not to other ones like gold.

Wait, what?

Moving on, second part of the sentence. Everybody knows that science is completely proven, right?

First, we have evolution. Yeah, most of what they tell us about humans coming from a common single-cell ancestor that magically came to life in the ocean seems pretty legitimate. It's possible, at least. But did it really happen? If something potentially could have happened, does that mean it did?

What about global warming? Glaciers and ice caps are melting, and it's possible that overall climate is warming, although that seems a bit far-fetched in Montana. Still, it could happen, and a lot of scientists say it is happening. But did you know that less than fifty years ago, esteemed scientists thought we were about to go into another ice age? So who's right?

Sometimes, I think we'll believe anything if a guy in a white coat with a test tube says so.

Personally, I don't believe in evolution and global warming, but not because of my religious beliefs at all. My theory is that we don't know anywhere near enough about the world to come up with the right answer. Think about the billions of creatures in the ocean that no human has ever seen, the crazy stuff down in the center of the Earth that we can only guess about based on magnetic fields. How could we possibly come up with exactly the right answers about the world when, in reality, we still don't have access to almost any of the clues?

But back to mythology, here's one thing a lot of myths have: a hero. There's Heracles, Perseus, Odysseus, Momoko, Robin Hood, the little mermaid, just to name a few. And what do they all have in common (other than Disney)?

They all mess up.

That's all I can come up with--they're not all selfless or beautiful or rich or successful, but they all screw up at least once. Maybe that's why they're heroes and not gods. I think we all want to be heroes, so we make our heroes somebody it's easier to act like. Nobody can be as awesome as Jesus or Mohammad, so what about the guy who spends years being seduced by a siren when he's supposed to be going home to his ridiculously loyal wife Penelope? That's not so hard to relate to, is it?

A couple modern heroes:

• Martin Luther King, Jr. (by the way, why do we still call him Jr. when nobody knows a thing about Martin Luther King, Sr.?)
• Oprah
• Abraham Lincoln
• Lady Gaga
• Beethoven
• Dr. House

Not too much in common with that list, either.

Anyways, after much ado, here's my definition of a myth: an unproven story that defines the unknown because, really, the unknown makes us uncomfortable. We like answers, and we like them now.

To finish off, here's a couple Charity quotes:

"What happens when the monster comes out of the closet? It has a gay pride parade!"
"What other people flush becomes our problem."