psychology

You Can’t Win Myth

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Some of the political writing of these days (2025 AD), has dare I say it a mythic quality. Well an attempted mythic quality. Yes, we’ve often seen attempts to make politicians mythical (the reference to “Camelot” for JFK, for instance), it feels like it’s worse in 2025. A fusion of easy publishing, Influencer Brain, and media-oriented culture seems to involve both more mythmaking, and worse mythmaking.

(Yes, to date this, this was inspired by Olivia Nuzzi’s American Canto, which led me to contemplate other issues.)

I daresay most of my readers know myths and legends. I’ve got a head stuffed full of all sorts of things I picked up from reading, an interest in theology, getting a psych degree (and being into Jung), plus my own spiritual practice. I’[m sure all of you have your own path to and your own myths that you treasure. Myths are funny things, we know they may not be literally true, but they speak to us in a way that is true. You don’t have to believe Hermes stealing Apollo’s livestock is literally true to stand before, say, the crackling aliveness of the good parts of the internet and say, like the ancients, “Hermes is here.”

The thing is myths also are things of many edges. I recall the tales of Taoist Immortal Lu Dong-Bin, who went from failed bureaucrat to immortal but also as an immortal got up to shenanigans, including those of a sexual nature. The aforementioned Hermes was lovable but also a troublemaker – which seemed to make him even more fun to be around (don’t we all know someone like that). Kingdoms rise but also fall. Heroes triumph before being laid low or aging to dust.

Some myths may promise paradise, but many remind us of our ever-changing world. Besides promises are just that, and truth is often where we are now.

But a lot of modern American political myths seem to be more self-argrandizing. We might say they’re myths as some chamelonic politician is hailed as an eternal savior or some reporter invokes how they’re like famed reporters of the path. Such actions may have mythic qualities but they’re really arguing “I am the best, I am awesome.” They’re hagiographic.

Doubtlessly our Christian heritage is part of this. We in America are steeped in stories of the apocalypse, of prophets, of a clock ticking down to the victory. Everyone wants to be on the right side when Armageddon happens so they can declare themselves victor. Everyone wants to be on the side of God, but apparently decided just making it up is fine – they certainly don’t seem afraid of any lighting bolts.

But that’s not mythical. You don’t win myth. Hagiography runs in one direction.

In myths and legends too often things fall, people die, and there’s some ambiguity. Many of them are – intentionally or not – funny or amusing because of the foibles of gods, heroes, and regular people. Just like life.

This is probably why such attempts at “mythologizing” come off as so ridiculous. They’re not relatable because they’re about how awesome someone is and only about that. Because they’re not relatable, they’re hard to make sense of or learn from or feel. They’re disconnected from our realities, just attempts to puff someone or someones up. Emperors and Empresses who have no clothes.

So when I see all these “mythical” innovations, there’s nothing there. No balance, no caution, no depth. It’s sales pitches and pretentious. It’s a great warning when someone is blowing smoke – and a warning to be very careful of said mythmakers.

–Xenofact

It’s All Grasping

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Lately I’ve been contemplating several psychological phenomena I see in my meditations and self-analysis. The funny thing is the more I look at the different problems we face – and that we address with meditation, psychology, and spiritual pursuits, it all seems a whole lot alike. In a way that seems very familiar. It’s all grasping.

I have talked before of what I call The Escape Capsule, that place in our heads and minds where “we” hide. Where we run away from things. Where we think we’ll be safe, but we are not safe, and our “we” is ephemeral.

I’ve talked of the Place of Death from the Tao Te Ching, where we hide, where we cut ourselves off from life, and where we usually seal our fate by being so disconnected. We can’t move through the world and flow with it, we can’t respond, and we fail. I noted it was a lot like The Escape Capsule, if not the same.

In contemplating Desire, I’ve seen how I have habits of mentally grabbing or seeking certain things. I’ll latch onto something, some urge or thought, and my mind is engaged in everything from rumination to playing with mental puzzles. In fact, my mind seems to want to have something to grab onto – I imagine you’ve been there as well.

All three of these things I’ve analyzed over time- and named, are reflections of one simple thing – Grasping or Craving. You know, what Buddha warned us about explicitly in his Four Noble Truths, and what everyone else warned us about. Buddha though really brought it to the surface with his gift for specific organization, so game recognizes game.

Needing a separate self, needing to wall it off (in a way that ruins it), and just craving really are the same thing. We’ve got all these grabby complexes in our heads, burrowed into our habits and even our physical postures and tensions, that are active. They also end up backfiring and making us miserable if they solidify too much.

Desire and fear, hiding away and reaching out, it’s all the same, grasping. You can feel that in the tension in your neck, in the worry running around your brain, in the obsession that makes you stare at the cigarette or angry email in horror. You’re stuck in the machine, and the machine is what you thought you were – and thought you enjoyed it sometimes.

As we get reminded, craving, what makes us suffer, is the problem. But this is a reminder it has many faces. The desire that torments us, the cutting off we create, the attempts to escape – they’re all the same.

This is where I get thankful for the legion of sages, therapists, mystics, artists, writers, and so on that keep reminding us that being alive isn’t the same as grasping, or having, or running away from danger. It’s being alive, flowing like water, present, there. That’s what meditation and therapy and so on are about in the end – seeing, understanding, but most importantly being there and being real in the midst of it all.

It’s all been said before, but I’m glad people keep saying it.

– Xenofact

Evangelical Christianity All The Way Down

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Something I’ve seen coming up in a number of podcasts and videocasts are people talking about – and dealing with – just how American (and Western) cultural thinking is a essentially Evangelical Christianity. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, if you grew up in America, you’ve probably got a good shot of fire-and-brimstone apocalyptic evangelism in your head.

The more I think about it, the more I see it. Yes that may be pattern matching, but I think there’s something really there.

There’s a streak of righteous punitive cruelty in American culture. Yes, we’re used to it in the “God hates everyone I hate me types.” But I also see it in people supposedly with progressive or humanist values, suddenly ready to throw out their beliefs to enjoy watching “them” suffer. There’s also a strong belief that people will actually learn from punishment, believed by the people who A) aren’t being punished and B) will probably say that they don’t change their beliefs just because someone threatens them.

There’s a kind of “Divinity-seeking” as well. There’s people, again who are distinctly NOT Evangelical Christians, who are still looking for a Big Daddy to tel them everything. Maybe it’s a political figure, maybe a writer, maybe some activist. They may even claim to have some belief in principles, but those principles are expressed in very anthropomorphic ways. Ever heard someone talk about “what science wants” or “what the economy” desires?

There’s the evangelism. Look, I’m a believer, I’m a guy that likes to speak and preach good ideas. I do enjoy it, but I wonder how much of this is cultural influence, wonder what I’d be with less influence from Evangelism. How many talks on technology, ecology, whatever sound like church services – it’s enough to lead you to find mind-numbing TED Talks soothing.

But most of all, over it all, is the waiting for Judgement Day. America has a huge streak of waiting for/wanting the Big Boom/Big Uplift. Once you think about it it’s hard to not see it everywhere.

It’s in our fear of Nuclear War hanging over our heads for decades – an understandable reaction.

It’s in talk of an Eco-apocalypse, which also includes no small number of people who hint darkly that we deserve it and that they will survive in a new heaven.

It’s in endless speculation about social collapse – and the order that follows. It’s not just racist internet fantasies, it’s people who happily talk about how Capitalism will fall apart and then we get heaven on Earth (without the effort of building it, apparently).

And as of this writing it’s in the speculation on “Artificial Intelligence” which apparently will both kill us all, and lead to an enlightened new world, and also give us AI girlfriends/boyfriends. The apocalypse is a selling point, be it edgy fear of “being so powerful” or talk of utopias (without covering the economic issues of the same). AI evangelism feels so familiar, the God in the Machine indeed.

I’d recommend taking a good look at how much of your life and actions is just repurposed Evangelical Christianity that you absorb like spiritual microplastics. Trust me, it’s worth examining.

Maybe at some point, I might even have to followup on my own experiences . . .

–Xenofact