the defined walls of crisis, myth and reality in the collective consciousness. 

ok so let’s start by explaining that myth is a metalanguage, right? it’s basically a language to describe another language. myths are stories with truths and untruths about our prevalent human themes and essentially contain everything that makes us who we are. so, inevitably, when humans are put in times of crisis, our exhausted states cling to the most necessary content and find an understanding of where we’re at, like, for real. 

what is particularly interesting is that the ancient greeks have these two ideas that thread through each other in a lot of the old tales. the idea of kleos and the idea of nostos. firstly, kleos is the idea of gaining glory through war or troubled times, but not really fame in the modern sense. then we have nostos - the pull/yearning of returning home after a long journey. this is how a lot of crises are seen through the media - you have the the idea of the heroes (at this point in time it’s clear that’s our NHS) and then the idea of returning to a state of normality (out of lockdown and back to our regular lives/economy/jobs/people). it is the idea of both nostos and kleos that is going to remain in the collective consciousness through crises, not the stories of the myths themselves exactly. our states of mind are brimming at the edge of consciousness here. dams are overflowing, twitter is raging and emotions are running to places we never expected them to be. myth in the grander sense of the word presents truths about human survival in story form so that they can be remembered and drawn upon. their surface meanings always tend to be fluid, whilst the underlying narratives and themes - those timeless themes always seem to prevail. let’s delve. 

firstly i’m going to define a crisis as a fight for survival. not just in the mortal sense of the word, but maybe in a looser, less defined understanding. we get desperate. mentally/physically/economically/creatively/socially the list is endless. as a collective consciousness (or even as individuals) we also like to find a vehicle in the face of this apparent exhaustion to use/abuse/focus our frustration and attention on OR if you’re more positive, to see the light at the end of the tunnel so to speak. the vehicle i’m addressing is going to be the poetic vehicle of understanding. we can all understand that people turn to religion in times of need - and that’s sort of the argument here. we’re always looking for something unexplainable to explain to us what we can’t explain. omg what that’s impossible! why do we do it to ourselves?! and yes, that’s what i’m wondering. 

so - how does myth present us with truths about human survival? the mythic for sean scully for instance, involves the idea of legends and mystery and something you can’t trace all the way back. something you can’t unravel or decode. well, you know i was talking about fluid surface meanings? during the creation period of greek mythology, there was a time when the titans (big dogs who created the greek gods) were almost all overthrown, other than prometheus. the gods and prometheus were all living on earth, doing art club and making men out of clay, when prometheus decides to give man fire. zeus didn’t like this - obviously wanted to keep some things to themselves - SO to counteract this deed, he created Pandora the world’s first woman (because woman is literally the counteraction for the creation of fire here). she was given a jar with all things bad in it, and in true human fashion she could not resist doing something she was told not to, and opened it. she spilled death, disease etc throughout the world and prometheus was chained to a rock to have his liver pecked out every day by an eagle. 

so now there’s this entry into the seductive power of the narrative. human beings are hardwired into the storytelling process AND I LOVE IT. we love being told stories! they’re sexy! they’re funny! that’s how i (at least) remember things, that’s how i can relate to people, and sympathise (and escape), and find this vessel slash vehicle for frustration. this prometheus story is a good/bad balancing act kind of story - a there should be consequences kind of story. and our hero although i’m not sure there’s really one here in the normal sense that i’m drawn to is ZEUS BABY! he’s a fair ruler. he’s made tough decisions. BUT we’re grateful to prometheus because we have fire and his liver is taking the hit. 

are you starting to see the social function of heroic poetry here yet? i fucking love it. we’re also learning about the kleos kind of guys - the heroes who suffer for the greater good. another good example is the slaying of the minotaur, which theseus promised his dad aegeus that he would sail back with black sails on his ship if he had defeated the monster and saved the town. unfortunately he was too preoccupied after his win with a lady of his choice to remember to change the sails so his dad jumps off the cliffs after seeing the wrong coloured ship assuming the worst and not able to survive in a world without his son. fun fact though! that’s actually why that bit of water is called the aegean sea. so you see there’s always a need for sacrifice.

speaking of sacrifice. in 1521 this guy called cortés stormed over to the aztecs in tenochtitlan in central america and told them how worthless their gods were and human sacrifice must stop. there’s a weird bit inside me that’s like no, fuck off cortés this isn’t your land/culture etc. but also, human sacrifice. it’s just a bit of an ethics question and maybe something for another time but what if human sacrifice was just their way of understanding how they could contribute meaningfully to their society and ultimately, the history of the human race? we’re trying to find it in our jobs, writing, hobbies, fame, swimming etc. and they’re over there thinking about how they can find value in their life and maybe, just maybe it’s about making someone (huitzilopochtli) happy enough so that our sun comes up the next day. it was literally the basis of their universe, and cortés came over and said, ‘yo bro, that shit’s weird’. 

anyway this idea that the sun would not come up ever again would probably be classed as a crisis - which is why they killed themselves. people were happy to do this as well! believe it! if you sacrificed yourself at huitzilopochtli (for the sun to rise the next day) it was seen as bold and noble. whilst sacrifice was going on people would watch and also cut themselves in this sort of collective yeah let’s do this. when there are record numbers of like, 80,400 sacrifices over 4 days - so 15 people a minute if we’re talking extended working hours some of this shit is consensual. some of the richer folk etc. would apparently give their children instead of themselves. how noble! 

side note - one aztec cult branch only sacrificed butterflies and hummingbirds. weirdly sensual, right?! but in terms of movement and butterfly effect (lol) etc. it actually makes sense. 

to bring us back to whatever messy century we’re in now though, it’s interesting to see how a lot of these beliefs and stories have survived so long. our immersion in technology and popular culture is so deep rn. these social platforms constantly propel us towards a weird state of the unfinished. to say that, we can understand the story is never over, and the limits of what constitutes the story are never clear again. i mean, character restrictions only encourage us to publish a thread or find a new way to reword. timelines, stories, you name it - it’s our new language that just never ends. we’re hungry for the glorified-through-instagram kleos figures. a new lust for a life we lust after and we’re not even sure why. are our social platforms our new meta-language?

i enjoyed phillip pullman’s tweet a few days ago actually: 

“surely it is no coincidence that boris was restored to us from the shores of death at easter, of all time? the parallels are uncanny. there is divine light on his golden hair. allison pearson has dissolved into a puddle shaken by little quivers.”

oh god, as if one would ever refer to boris as jesus in an essay, someone return us to sanity. this tweet is probably bouncing off that guardian article that mum came across that was talking about the wounded hero and that, or at least the concept of it -  A WOUNDED HERO - our leader BJ that apparently rallies the nation in this current crisis by suffering alongside or maybe we should say on behalf of the people and overcoming it. he is our constant, chaotic kleos that we need (apparently). why does this bring people together? everyone felt that weird moment when he was sort of teetering on the edge, right? there was collective chatter on twitter like no! guys! - don’t wish him dead! (side eye emoji) before anyone ever actually wished him dead, so they’re sort of martydom-ing themselves for being so nice to a person that they don’t respect/like/enjoy. i felt uncomfortable on the internet that day. 

what i always find very interesting is this understanding of chinese whispers when it comes to narratives or ideas. i read somewhere the other day that everything at some point will have been written on. there was a time where everything will have passed through some form of paper/diary/notebook/train ticket/margin of your daily newspaper/cigarette packet/receipt ALL AT VARYING SPEEDS AND MOODS AND TIMES. all of these everyday bits of paper making something (in)significant inscribed. almost a metaphor for the passing of myth, no? a translation of texts down generations, metamorphosing. the internet actually accuses us sometimes of being shallow, of skimming. but here i am, on the internet, passing down tales to you in hope that they might spark a thought. also you do realise when books are turned into film, it’s just a translation. can you imagine all of the old texts that have been shoved through a meat grinder to make them into something more palatable at the time? also, we’ve got to think about context here because there will always be a certain century spin on whatever tale is being told.  

you know what is great is how the pre-raphaelites actually remember these tales through psychological realism. they opened this door to myth and really saw the terror/fear/rawness through certain characters to try and encourage people to see things differently. their paintings that looked super real were the door to understanding these feelings on another level but also access them on our own plane. both art and poetry is about helping people process thoughts and emotions and crises because they’re proving someone has been through this before, and is trying to translate it for you. myth is so prevalent because it does what art does. it resonates across time, metamorphosing into new forms and reinventing itself whilst retaining the same bone structure. myths explore the bare bones of human nature in godly forms but most interestingly they carry human attributes AND FLAWS. 

to draw a conclusion to this mildly rambling text, we’ve simply woven myth through our human existence to only explain ourselves better in the vast oddities that crises can bring. whilst we’re all focusing on keeping a routine to get us through, staying sane at the moment, i’d like to tie the knot with penelope. penelope was odysseus’ wife, who was left on ithica waiting for her husband’s return from the trojan war (can i remind everyone he took 20 years - 10 fighting in the war and 10 fucking his way back to her). all the while, penelope has to fight off potential guys who want to marry her. “only once i finish this incredibly difficult woven thing” she says. so the boys wait and drink, and fuck and eat all around her house whilst she is keeping these male penis-threats at bay with her loom. what they don’t know, is that through the night, she is unpicking what she does in the day, never progressing enough to choose. unweaving is penelope’s skill, her crafty, cunning skill that earns her the title of kleos (hero status) in the odyssey WHICH IS SUPER UNUSUAL because the battle she is fighting is not with a sword. nostos as i’ve mentioned is the pull/yearning of returning home after a long journey which is everything she symbolises, and the goal of odysseus’ journey. if we can draw these uncanny parallels now to ourselves, at home, earning kleos in our own rightful way even if we don’t work for the NHS. our patience, in turmoil, unpicking and suffering through certain periods, yeah BUT we’re waiting for our return of normal life. and what use is a weaver in a time of crises without their cunning spinning of ruses?