The Significance of Myths

I had circulated a note , a while ago, suggesting that we are, above all things myth-making animals.

Now, I wish to attempt to explain the why of it.

Why do we make up religious and political myths?
 
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As I see it, it is likely because of :

a) the uncertainty of life
b) the certainty of death, and
c) the hopelessness of the above.

How else can thinking, sentient, beings endure their lot?
 
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So ; myths = philosophical, political, religious, et. al – , that placate the heart , soothe the soul, and calm the mind, provide the needed fodder for continuous distraction

So , we court preoccupations to NOT think about reality.

It is all, thereby an -albeit futile – expenditure of raw spirit, in stark terror of the Unknowable.
 
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One must note the obvious , grave, danger of it:
we can, and do, throw our (and others’_) lives away for believing in myths such as ‘communism’ , the ‘free society’, or the ‘second coming’, et. al.

Time to (re) think?

And know who we are , and why we do what we do
 
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If nothing else, it may restrict our enduring passion for mass murder?

 
[©R.Kanth 2023]

Professor Rajani Kanth, is Author of Coda (A Novel), A Day in the Life (Novel), Expiations (Verse), and Farewell to Modernism (Political Economy Tract).