Do you believe that you’re part of a widespread Good vs. Evil struggle and that you fight every day on the Good side?If you feel as though your movement is the Good and your enemies the Evil, then you are ultimately looking at whatever your experience is through a very blurred, low resolution lens and, in most cases, it’s not because you’re stupid, but because you’ve been co-opted. You need a better mythology.

The sign you are trapped in a bad mythology

The word “mythology” brings images of a Marvel character and maybe some exotic thing; a Norse god or an Egyptian pyramid, etc.Mythology – the real one – is an embedding of gnomic and esoteric wisdom into a culture through storytelling and other artefacts. It’s the encoded information you pass to your children as you had passed to you; slight variations due to the wider meta-game changes that have occurred during your life notwithstanding.

Mythology

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We are in uncertain times; the old guards are being torn down and the meta-conflict we’re experiencing is an impotent, “let’s return to business as usual” versus a similarly weak opposition crying, “we’re never going back to normal… but what do we do in the new world?”

So, you have archons that are effectively pillow-fighting over how they’re going to control you and I, (and crying about how much getting hit by said pillow hurts,) and meanwhile, we’ve still got to get up, brush our teeth and go about our daily business.

You all, I’m sure, understand the struggle.

This article is a guidebook for doing so. I didn’t intend to write a companion piece to last month’s issue, <a href="https://hyperionmagazine.com/issues/dec-2020/surviving-the-information-wars/">Surviving The Information Wars </a>, but there was a niggling feeling in my mind; I’d given everyone the tactical tools to survive in the short-term; longer term though, what do you do?

To continue from last month; you’ve made off with the treasure in the dead of the night… what next?

After any given election cycle, there’s always a triumphant exhale or a gasp of doom on behalf of the two sides that naturally form. Then the mood goes right back around to where it was at the beginning of the last cycle as the machine starts to grind alive again. Except now the sides are reversed. There are also smaller changes to the meta-game.

In the last US Election cycle, it was particularly pronounced as the meta-game involved how people consume media. You’ll all, especially our US readers but including everyone, know of at least one person who got swept up in the last election cycle as something other than business as usual.

And realistically; it’s business as usual. The machine doesn’t stop, the meta-game changes slightly, and you already undoubtedly know several people who have gone from screaming, “The Sky is Falling” to crowing at the defeated. Vice-versa applies as well; it’s all fun and memes while your “side” is winning, and no doubt you’ve seen some of your network turn into the “Sky Is Falling” worrywarts they decried in previous years.

Now, it’s the opinion of the author that the minute you tie yourself into any side of mass-market ideology, you have conceded the game for yourself. Your story – and I mean your story – the one where you wake up in the morning, brush your teeth and go about your day – is not the story painted to you by the various forces that’ll have you as one of the untold masses. You’re still going to wake up tomorrow morning and brush your teeth, no matter who runs the UN or sits in a particular seat, or wherever a ticker might be on a green or red line on a stock exchange somewhere.

So far as the machinations of the wider world; you have two tasks to do. First, you need to pay attention to the above only so far as you can grasp the consequences of the meta-game changes as relates to your personal story.

Second; and this is the most imperative and yet rarely considered action: you need to fill the void.

An easy way to spot you’re being lulled into a trap of mythology is when you start to believe that you’re part of a widespread Good vs. Evil struggle, and that the scope and way-markers of the struggle change, yet said widespread Good vs. Evil struggle as ultimate goal is the one you’re aiming to win.

That is not to say there isn’t Good, (with the capital G,) and Evil, (with the capital E.) It is to say that the simplified struggle isn’t ever what’s occurring and that if you feel as though your movement is the Good and your enemies the Evil, then you are ultimately looking at whatever your experience is through a very blurred, low resolution lens and, in most cases, it’s not because you’re stupid, but because you’ve been co-opted.

And this is where your natural need to exist within a mythological framework works against you so that you cannot see our aforementioned meta-game changes.

There is another way to fulfil your mythological expression though.

There are better mythologies; a mythology that’s built from the ground up. You wake up tomorrow morning, brush your teeth, go about your business; and your business happens to express the values which you build into the world, and consists of things that reflect back mythology at you.

Let’s detour to explain for a section, before getting to the wider action point of the article.

Mythology and heroism have been co-opted, used by the various forces that collect and snowball across the globe and turn you into an unwitting pawn in whatever circumstances arrive. That’s the too-long, didn’t-read summary of where we’re at so far.

When the words “heroism” and “mythology” flash into your head, ask yourself honestly what comes to mind; because for millions of people, they’ll see a Marvel character or two, and maybe for mythology they’ll see some exotic thing; a Norse god or an Egyptian pyramid, etc.

You can buy a replica of Sauron’s ring on Etsy. This is not an object of power. The latest hashtag-celebrity is not a “legend” because they dared to call someone a dick, (shock-horror,) on live television.

Mythology – the real one – is an embedding of gnomic and esoteric wisdom into a culture through storytelling and other artefacts. It’s the encoded information you pass to your children as you had passed to you; slight variations due to the wider meta-game changes that have occurred during your life notwithstanding.

The answer to better mythologies is to better embed meaning into your own life. From there, you become an agent of affecting the meta-game at a level you can actually influence.

While small, the smallest things and the stage where you are with them is the most necessary one; planting a vegetable garden or volunteering at a food shelter, (or, whatever it is that you use to embed meaning into your life through actions you care about,) will rarely answer the co-opted’s cries of, “What about the big picture?”

However, it’s a necessary first step because it creates actionable change within yourself, (and, no doubt some necessary humility on the part of some!) and it also creates mythology in the sense of changing the character of your surroundings; and creates objects of power – the tree you plant, the photo that hangs on your wall, and so on. You create objects of power and stories of meaning, and these reflect back at you every day.

Once you understand enough to change the character of your surroundings, you are capable of waveforms of change through the influence you exert.

Now… realising outward change of the universe is a huge leap for anyone’s personal and social mythology. It is the first step.

Creating better heroes is the second step; in which you realise that, having learned you can change the universe, you get to choose which changes you make.

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Better Mythologies, Better Heroes | Hyperion Magazine

The sign you are trapped in a bad mythology

Mythology

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