Mythogem # 6 - And there were Giants . . .

Genesis 6:4

English Standard Version (ESV)

⁴ The Nephilim^[a] were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. These were the mighty men who were of old, the men of renown.

Footnotes:

1. Genesis 6:4 Or giants

The giants we face have different names: Fear. Discouragement. Loneliness. Worry. Guilt. Temptation. Anger. Resentment. Doubt. Procrastination. Failure. Jealousy. ― David Jeremiah

From King David to King Arthur, from Jack the Giant-killer to Thór, all have faced Giants, and they all have become giants in their own right too. Analytical psychologist Marie-Louise von Franz offers insight into the meaning of Giants within myth and fairytale, suggesting that “Giants, therefore, are a supernatural race, older and only half human. They represent emotional factors of crude force, factors which have not emerged into the realm of human consciousness” (123). Whether Giant, Mountain or Cave Troll, or Ogre, the heroes of both myth and fairytale have long fought against crude forces (both external and internal) much bigger than themselves. And to learn to commit to a struggle that is much bigger than one’s self, to commit to a higher goal beyond just serving one’s own self are two functions of the mythic, fairytale hero. So, if you aspire to become a modern day creative hero these are commitments that you must be willing to follow through with as well.

Furthermore, Giants throughout various mythologies (i.e., Greek and Hindu) are often depicted as powers at war with the Gods―a race lost somewhere between god and mankind. On one hand, a Giant may be a terrible force to be reckoned with, but, on the other, it may also serve as a protector depending on its symbolic function within the narrative’s overarching mythos.

Overall, for this prompt, I would like to focus on the-Giant-as-abstract-threat as well as a sleeping power within which needs awakened. Who or what are the Giants that threaten our existence? How do they threaten the higher order of life? These are the threshold guardians that we all must face to acquire the weapons and items that we need to get to transition to the next phase of our journeys. However, most of us live in fear, that is, in the shadows of dark-Giants. And it is no surprise that Giants, Trolls, and Ogres dwell in the recesses or caves of mountains, because, like the mountain or cave, they share the characteristics of their dwelling―an awful majesty and horror, and sometimes hibernation. They haunt and hunt within the recesses and caves of our psyches just as much as they do within myths and fairytales.

Our own Giants are largely projections of the obstacles that we face, obstacles which seem insurmountable―out of our power and control. But the more power we give a Giant, the more control we give that Giant as well. A way to face our dark-Giants, though, is to summon to battle the binary-opposite of those giants―if it is heartlessness then we must summon love; if it is fear then we must summon hope; if it is despair then we must summon perseverance; if it is doubt we must summon faith. Like Mehmet Murat ildan has said, “Mt. Everest of Earth is 8.8 km tall; Mt. Olympus of Mars is 22 km tall. Every time you see a giant, you must know that that giant might be just a dwarf somewhere else!” And a point that I want to borrow here is the power of perspective. Heartlessness is no match for love. Fear is no match for hope. And despair is no match for perseverance.

This battle between Giants is best summarized by George R. R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones series: “I’ve always preferred writing about grey characters and human characters. Whether they are giants or elves or dwarves, or whatever they are, they’re still human, and the human heart is still in conflict with the self.” The battle between our own Giants is exactly this, that “the human heart is still in conflict with the self.” This is how our dark-Giants are born: out of a conflict between ideals, out of an imbalance of power and control.

As Bernard Kelvin Clive has said, “Let the sleeping dogs lie, but rise up! You sleeping giants.” So, what are the sleeping giants that we need to awaken to confront and combat our dark-Giants? What powerful areas of our life have fallen comatose?:

It was sometimes said that the grey-and-black mountain range which ran like a spine north to south down that part of Faerie had once been a giant, who grew so huge and so heavy that, one day, worn out from the sheer effort of moving and living, he had stretched out on the plain and fallen into a sleep so profound that centuries passed between heartbeats. (Neil Gaiman, Stardust)

Furthermore, Mehmet Murat ildan also claims that, “A locked big door always kneels down in front of its little key! Every giant has a weak side!” So, what is the key? What are the weaknesses that will aid us in overcoming the threat and domination of our dark-Giants?

To return to King David as an exemplar, he not only realized what Isaac Newton had said, “If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants,” but also what Jill Telford critiques: “People say they walk on the shoulders of giants. True, but have you ever walked like one?” King David is an example of someone who not only stood on the shoulders of his God/faith, but he also walked like the giant upon whose shoulders he was standing to face down his own dark-Giant.

Remythologizing the battle of David and Goliath―Achilles and Boagrius: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYERjMjm3Qk.

 

A visual analogy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIcExdpsEcQ.

Consider the following dark-Giants from the article, “Top 5 Regrets of the Dying” by Bronnie Ware.

Dark-Giants as regret:

• I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
• I wish I didn’t work so hard.
• I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.
• I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
• I wish that I had let myself be happier.

What is the greatest regret that you face today, and what are you doing to overcome it or integrate into your life in a positive way? How has this regret transformed into a dark-Giant over time? What Giant do you need to awaken to face it?

In addition, in the apologetic work Slaying the Giants in Your Life: You Can Win the Battle and Live Victoriously (2001) author David Jeremiah outlines different spiritual battles that we face on routine:

·         Fighting Your Fear

·         Destroying Your Discouragement

·         Liberation from Loneliness

·         Winning Against Worry

·         Guarding Against Guilt

·         Taming Your Temptation

·         Attacking Your Anger

·         Resisting Your Resentment

·         Disarming Your Doubts

·         Postponing Your Procrastination

·         Facing Your Failure

·         Journeying Beyond Jealousy

Which of these vices has become the dark-Giant whose shadow you’ve been living under? What is a possible battle-plan for conquering this vice?

Sources:

Franz, Marie-Louise von. The Interpretation of Fairytales. Revised ed. Boston, Mass.: Shambhala Publications, Inc. 1996. Print.

Mythogem # 5 - Fate, Destiny, Free-Will, Predestination, & Time-travel

Image courtesy of http://www.salikon.dk/loom_behind_fate.html.

I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. ― Joseph Campbell

We are spinning our own fates, good or evil, never to be undone. ― William James

Dreams are like stars . . . you may never touch them, but if you follow them they will lead you to your destiny. ― Unknown

How we experience the world depends on what we believe our roles are.

Do purpose and meaning exist outside of us, somewhere out there, or are they dependent on us; are we the sole creators or are we subject to a Creator? This is the biggest question that humanity has wrestled with from time in memoriam, but I will not propose an answer here because, like Campbell, I believe that you are already the answer you yourself need: “Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question [i.e., if life has a meaning] when you are the answer.”

In the debate of “the-question-of-existence” we have the matters of Fate and Destiny, Free Will and Predestination, so which do you believe governs life?

Do we weave our own fate or has it already been orchestrated? Can one change one’s fate and, therefore, alter destiny? In life, what do we really have power and control over? Are we able to choose our own adventure, or has our adventure been reserved or preordained? Or is there truth in the paradox: we were predestined to have free will? And does true love result in finding our soulmate? What power is there in choice? These are the essential questions of any literary work as much as they are the threads of our everyday life.

What do you believe your role is?

And if personality is consistent and unchanging, is your own personality-type a result of fate; why or why not?

Another important aspect of these concepts is their relationship to Time. We are all time-travelers. But some of us choose to live in different realms of Time. For instance, are you a past time-traveler; do you spend most of your time dwelling on/in the past? Are you a present time-traveler; do you live for the moment? Or are you a future time-traveler; do you spend most of your time looking into the future, living for tomorrow? How does your view of Time relate to your beliefs about Fate and Destiny, Free Will and Predestination?

Mythogem # 4 - Finding Yourself Using Self-Guides

Image courtesy of http://www.wallcg.com/fantasy-angel-girl-desktop-33494-127581/.

Humankind may explore every aspect of our world and then go on to occupy the far reaches of space; but even in those moments we will still not have begun to comprehend the true depths and complexity of the human psyche because the exploration to know what it is to be is closer to infinity than these. We must travel inward to find ourselves.

The eternal question is: “Who am I?”

. . .

For this exercise we will be borrowing the terminology and concepts of self-discrepancy theory as devised by psychologist E. Tory Higgins. And though there are various ways to apply this theory, for all intents and purposes here, we will be concerned with the most basic, that is, defining the actual, ought, ideal, and feared selves.

Higgins advocates that in defining the psychological self, there are multiple self reflections which influence our concept of self:

There are three basic domains of the self: (a) the actual self, which is your representation of the attributes that someone (yourself or another) believes you actually possess; (b) the ideal self, which is your representation of the attributes that someone (yourself or another) would like you, ideally, to possess (i.e., a representation of someone’s hopes, aspirations, or wishes for you); and (c) the ought self, which is your representation of the attributes that someone (yourself or another) believes you should or ought to possess (i.e., a representation of someone’s sense of your duty, obligations, or responsibilities). . . . A classic literary example of the difference between the ideal self and the ought self is the conflict between a hero’s “personal wishes” and his or her “sense of duty.” (320-321)

To understand each interaction Higgins goes on to describe the self and its relation to point-of-view:

There are two basic standpoints on the self, where a standpoint on the self is defined as a point of view from which you can be judged that reflects a set of attitudes or values (see Turner, 1956): (a) your own personal standpoint, and (b) the standpoint of some significant other (e.g., mother, father, sibling, spouse, closest friend). (321)

When considering the two standpoints and the three domains, he draws the following conclusion:

Combining each of the domains of the self with each of the standpoints on the self yields six basic types of self-state representations: actual/own, actual/other, ideal/own, ideal/other, ought/own, and ought/other. The first two self-state representations (particularly actual/own) constitute what is typically meant by a person’s self-concept (see Wylie, 1979). The four remaining self-state representations are self-directive standards or acquired guides for being—in brief, self-guides. (321)

Therefore, throughout this exercise, you will be concerned with defining your self-concept and self-guides.

Using both the Self-Discrepancies Assessment Worksheet and the Self-Concept Words Handout fill in each column with what you consider to be the 10 most important adjectives which best describe those domains.

>>www.goodmedicine.org.uk/files/assessment,%20self-discrepancies.DOC

>>http://www.kisd.org/khs/english/help%20page/Descriptive%20Words.htm

Furthermore, in additional scholarship, “Self-Discrepancies and Affect: Incorporating the Role of Feared Selves” by Carver, Lawrence, and Scheier, there is the added interaction of the feared self, the complete opposite of the ideal self. So, on the handout, draw a diagonal line through the ideal self column and add-in the feared self.

Next, define your self-concept (actual/own) and self-guides (ideal/own, ideal/other, ought/own, and ought/other). As the theory attests, there will eventually be discrepancies between each relationship. However, the overall goal here is to understand how to conceptualize these aspects of your own self. In doing so, they will allow you to see yourself in terms of where you’re at, in terms of what the world expects of you, and in terms of what you hope or aspire to be, as well as what you fear becoming.

Source(s):

Higgins, E. Tory. “Self-discrepancy: A Theory Relating Self And Affect.” Psychological Review 94.3 (1987): 319-340. Print.

Mythogem # 3 - Metaphors That We Live By: How Metaphors Shape the Way We See the World

[M]ythology is a compendium of metaphors. — Joseph Campbell

The following prompt is based on cognitive linguists, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s thesis from their monumental work Metaphors We Live By: “If we are right in suggesting that our conceptual system is largely metaphorical, then the way we think, what we experience, and what we do every day is very much a matter of metaphor” (124). Therefore, if our thoughts, experiences, and actions are rooted in metaphor, then what do those metaphors of thought, experience, and action look like?

More specifically, what are the metaphors that each of us live by day-to-day?

It is important to be self-aware of such metaphors because they dictate everything about our social existence.

By researching your own personal, conceptual metaphors you will begin to see how both culture and personality shape the way we perceive reality.

So let’s begin with a definition of metaphor: “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” (125, emphasis in original). This is the most applicable definition describing the function of metaphor, because metaphor transforms how we comprehend one thing using the terminology and experience of another.

All linguistic concepts (for it is hard to conceive of a concept outside of language) are structured through conceptual metaphors. Some of Lakoff and Johnson’s most popular examples include: ARGUMENT IS WAR, THEORIES ARE BUILDINGS, IDEAS ARE COMMODITIES, KNOWING IS SEEING, and LOVE IS MAGIC.

To further explore this idea let’s use the conceptual metaphor GOD IS LOVE. This is probably the most important conceptual metaphor within the realm of the Christian religion today: “Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8); “God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16b). What this is saying in terms of the conceptual metaphor is that we can better understand God through the terminology and experience of love. Many apologists will advise one not to misinterpret these verses as saying that wherever there is love there is God and therefore the worship of love leads to the worship of God, or even that in some new age way God is literally love or that Love is literally god. But this type of thinking also misses the point of the metaphor; the metaphor defies logic because the metaphor is arguing that God is not literally love but that God can be better understood if we figuratively think about God through the language of love. The GOD IS . . . metaphor is a powerful metaphor that characterizes the entirety of a religion: its thoughts, experiences, and actions. Even on a personal level we mustn’t forget to ask ourselves, “What is our metaphor for God?”

GOD IS                     .

And though metaphors are embedded within a culture’s linguistic heritage, we also have the ability to create new ways of seeing: “New metaphors have the power to create a new reality” (131). Mythologist Joseph Campbell also expressed that, “If you want to change the world, you have to change the metaphor.” So like Shakespeare, who changed the world into a stage, we have the power to re-conceptualize our world through metaphor. What is your metaphor for the world?

THE WORLD IS                     .

Because cultural metaphors are socially constructed, they highlight “certain realities and [hide] others” (132). What this means is, take for instance any of the aforementioned examples, metaphors may help us see and experience one thing in terms of another, yet blind us to other ways of seeing, such as with the ARGUMENT IS WAR example; it hides looking at argument as anything beyond the concept of war. But what if—as Lakoff and Johnson suggest—we look at argument in terms of dance, or, as I would suggest, a journey, or conversation. Conceptually, dancing, journeying, and conversing bring out realities which lay hidden behind the war metaphor. Dance would suggest that argumentation is not a competition but a complimentary process of movement (action) as well as a co-created artistic expression; a journey would suggest that argument is not rivalry but understanding the experience of life through empathetic exchange; a conversation would suggest that those who argue are neither winners nor losers but are participating in a dialogue where each speaker gains valuable information from the transaction. Looking at argument as war hides the realities that argument can also be about co-creation, empathy, and sharing information/knowledge.

“[T]ruth is always relative to a conceptual system that is defined in large part by metaphor” (134); change the metaphor and you change the way we see truth: “Metaphor is one of our most important tools for trying to comprehend partially what cannot be comprehended totally: our feelings, aesthetic experiences, moral practices and spiritual awareness” (134). Metaphor reminds us of the limits of our experience but also helps us to transcend the limitations of our experience. Metaphor is the ultimate aspect of What-If Framing.

Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.

— Benjamin Lee Whorf, American linguist noted for his hypotheses regarding the relation of language to thinking and cognition and for his studies of Hebrew and Hebrew ideas, 1897- 1941

• What is your analogy, metaphor, or simile for “life,” “love,” “music,” “communication,” “reading,” and “writing” (remember that personal mythology is just as much about looking without to look within as it is looking within to look without)?
• What, then, does this reveal about how you see yourself?
• Where might your analogy, metaphor, or simile start to break down? And why is this contrast important?
• How do you see your major/career in terms of an analogy, metaphor, or simile?
• What is the significance of framing it this way?

Metaphor Analysis Mini-Project: As a separate exercise, consider the lyrics to your favorite song: What analogies, metaphors (explicit and implicit), and similes do they use? Why? And, most importantly, how does the analogy, metaphor, or simile create an argument? If you can’t decide on a song, follow the link to get started: http://www.stlyrics.com/lyrics/juno/alliwantisyou.htm.

*All biblical quotes are from the ESV translation.

*All italicized keywords and verb phrases are representative of implicit metaphors.

Source(s):

Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. “Metaphors We Live By.” Language, Thought, and Culture, U of P Chicago. pp. 124-134. Print.