AShortHistoryOfMyth

Books FiftyBooks

Notes, since i bought the book.

• Like science and technology, mythology... is not about opting out of this world, but about enabling us to live more intensely within it.
• The most powerful myths are about extremity; they force us to go beyond our experience. There are moments when we all... have to go to a place that we have never been, and do what we have never done before. (see also: romance)
• The myth tells us what we have to do if we want to become a fully human person.
• ...myth is make-believe; it is a game that transfigures our fragmented, tragic world, and helps us to glimpse new possibilities by asking ‘what-if’...
• There is never a single, orthodox version of a myth. As our circumstances change, we need to tell our stories differently in order to bring out their timeless truth.
• You cannot be a hero unless you are prepared to give up everything; there is no ascent to the heights without a prior descent into darkness, no new life without some form of death.