course summary

This class for me has been an intricate enlightening process. Mythology had always been in the realm of interesting but useless knowledge to me and i honestly had no belief that the progression of mythological history could apply to the world we exist in today. For me, i realize how misconstrued that idea really was. As we read and discussed Ovid i began to see how modern language originates from ideas and events, people and actions from those who lived so long ago. Thousands of years of stories and actions and lives lead to produce artistic ideas musical theatrical language scientific ideas, all of which have resonated through every aspect of our world. Even the progression of idea throughout Ovid can be related back. The creation of our lives, innocence of new life and the using of those new lives by those of greater standing. All actions and struggle we experience in growing up in a world already inhabited by those who have taken our steps before us and wish to use our ignorance to their advantage. Then we come to the second section which revolves around the pain of initiation. Ovid describes this in the most graphic and brutal representation but the concepts remain the same and apply to us once more. As we mature past ignorance we then plunge ourselves head first into our world in order to find our way. Often times we do this with haste in order to grab that foot hold and escape our own ignorance which merely lands us into a knew realm were unfamiliar with that often leads to a painful experience that will help us grow. Thus is life, we plunge head first in blind hopes of reaching an unforeseen bounty of mental or physical gain with a chance of succeeding or failing painfully increasing our knowledge of our world to the day that we reach the final section 3  defined as apocalypse. This is where i learned another large concept i was unfamiliar with. Like many i assumed apocalypse was the end of all, a doom filled term that meant the extinction of all things in our world. I was again wrong. This final theme relates to our lives to me because we defined it as a revelation or revealing of what was once hidden. For me, this is interpreted as the final realization of ourselves. There comes a point in most peoples lives where after they have lived long enough and experienced enough painful initiations that they become self aware of their place and purpose. Apocalypse at it finest. This wraps around to one of the biggest points of my class experience that in order to experience the beauty of simplicity one must experience pain to its fullest in the form of life and initiation. Its all mythology, from ignorant beginnings, to painful rising, to an apocalyptic realization of a complex series of webbed ideas ultimately converging to form one beautifully displaced simplistic flow of life to be shared by all who exist under its dominion. Its a large realization i feel will help me grow as a student and a man in order to accept the pain of life with a more open approach of its means to a greater good. Simplicity, is beauty. Thank you professor sexton.    

The End Draws Near, Apocalypse. (my life as a mythic detective)

Now I have put an extensive amount of thought into what I can take from this course and how I can apply it to my world, and my conclusion may not be to the conformity style standard one might expect. I am not going to glorify our leader in the battle of knowledge as our god, but rather thank him for a unique trait I have come to gather from his teachings. You see quite simply my experiences have been a strange shift of poverty to middle class to my initiation transition of a comfortable lifestyle of meandering thoughts and loose fitted dreaming into hardened concentrated pain to a strange middle ground of work related devotion and pursuit to fulfill my ever lurking urge to know why we exist as we exist and where the next step lies. What this rambling of my present thoughts leads me to express is that I am going to thank our class based leader for opening my eyes to the beauty in simplicity. One might get caught on this statement and baffle at how all of our discussion on the complex structure of creation that lead us to our current existence could possibility be summed up to such a simple concept but allow me to elaborate for a moment and keep an open mind as I did. 

To me simplicity isn't going out and looking at a tree or gliding through a meadow of beautiful sprouting flowers and seeing all of the beautiful natural life. No, to me those characteristics fall under the anatomy of biology and its sprouting branches that define all things living and chemistry’s infinite capacity to make conjectures towards everything before and after and even during at a microscopic level. The sciences as I view them are indeed a thing of beauty but in more of a “wow, the structure of flow of the sciences are a beautiful design” sort of way. Beauty as I see it for the purpose of this piece is to recognize how the simple act of living is filled with its own complex weaving set of chaotic organization that some-how collaborates into the ever present and moving world around us.

How about a contradiction now eh? A little suspenseful regurgitation of a previous thought recovered in a way that contradicts my previous statement to make you question my credibility. Since I have started this shift in my mental meanderings, I have noticed a greater enhancement in the beauty of the natural world around me. What did I tell you? Doubt me now aren’t you considering I just told u that I didn’t believe in beauty in such a way as to be related to looking at daisies and bee’s, but then again maybe that isn’t how I am actually seeing it. No, in fact, the beauty I have begun to see is much more sinister in nature. It is struggle, pain, misery and death. The bee takes from the flower to create its bounty while at the same time spreading the plants seed. The cooperation continues with the death of the bee and its recycling into the earth. Concepts that we normally categorize so negatively I’ve begun to view in a different manner that relates more to myself than I could have ever imagined. These concepts are the driving force to everything. We absolutely must struggle we must experience pain to see beauty. That job you hate, those teachers who endlessly barricade u in with what seems and endless load of homework to the emotional cut of deficient family or friends or maybe that once thought special someone who changed your views on trust. All stories told a thousand times over and yet all unique to you and you alone. Simplicity is beauty. The simplicity of the average life. Lives of thousands you never once stop to ponder. The lives of those people who statistically are experiencing the exact same experiences you are right this moment. All these lives and all these experiences are not so unique in nature but unique to your nature. And this is where I come to my point. 

Life is not about going out and cutting down the beast or save the damsel in distress, finding the trove of treasure long lost to man-kind. It’s something so much more simplistic. It is suffering so that once the suffering has subsided, you can look around and see beauty. Beauty enhanced by those sufferings. Cherishing those small details in your life that makes the chaos organize into its beautiful structure. Spinning your own little tale as a being of mythological nature facing down the monsters of your work and your passions to form your beautiful endings. Or feeling secure in your nature and your moment of simplicity to have it run down by the next tragedy. To me, this is how I have viewed the process of mythic detective work. The keen eye of the explorer notices the finite details of the world and knows there place in the scheme of things, but the observant eye of the detective sees those details in a larger context. He sees the series of simple movements that build to the beautiful flow that is the human existence.    

Displacement of a Familiar Ordeal

The age of technology, interesting is it not? A culture consumed by the drive of keyboards and internet access, instant connections with a dozen different social sites to connect with from the simplest forms of teenage interests to the highest forms of educational discussion. This constant display of social morphing and forging turns even the most recluse scared individuals to kings and queens of their own virtual domain in whatever area of interest they desire to pursue. The day is the 23, the month June of the year 2007 in a small town just outside of Charleston, Mississippi.

                Within this town there exists a small high school. This school holds no special purpose or significant value aside from the typical use of casually moving the semi steady flow of new displaced and uncertain teenage minds of the city through the uncomfortable social shift of elementary hand held education to the oh so dramatic shift of high school persuaded mental puberty. A swarm of nervous and yet excited faces preparing to initiate into this new environment with hopes of being the smartest or most popular or strongest, fastest athletes before they leave the doors of their new established domains. Or contrary, there is the select few who proud and secluded in their own worth as human beings of both scholastic hunters and athletic achievers that deviate from the swarm of social absorption to meander towards their own goals of excellence, tossing aside the affections and admiration of those eyes of curiosity, people much like Cindy Trendolar. A young woman, not from the expected heritage of rich wealthy debutants weaved into intellectual workings of finances or medicine or any of those careers one would expect to breed such finesse as she possessed, but from a family of poor origins and insignificant careers in ordinary positions placed systematically around town. Simple but modest careers that even the most wealthy need, such as gas stations or grocery store clerks; careers that although simple propelled Cindy forward with an unmatched ethic of work and modesty. This code of morals did however leave this girl lacking in interest towards any “normal” passion of the a-typical 2000’s generation high school urchins. Texting and internet, dating and parading around town in a simplistic lame show of “rebellion” alluded this unique species of teenage girl’s understanding, and thus she spent the majority of her time secluded talking only to her sister which she valued as her closest and only friends.

                On the opposite side of seclusion stood Pete randerforst, this young individual entered this normally unsure environment with an air of destructive self confidence that later many would recognize to be his greatest fault. Now Pete’s agenda fell towards the idea that he should enter as king of the land known as the hallways of his high school and it showed. The boy, being of natural physical build, would strut around with head held high, trying with the entirety of his physical form and drive to sway the attention of all female counter parts he could find. Quickly he joined as many sports teams as energy would allow in attempt to elevate his status amongst his group of easily influenced peers. As he wished it, so it was. Pete soon was known as the smooth talking jock, quick to rouse and sway young hearts and minds to his side and into his “area” of interest. Though his reputation had come swiftly and fulfilled his goals he soon came across one frustration he could not cope with against all mental will.

                One day in a most ordinary and usual setting within the brightly lit, yet cavernous walls of the hall, Pete stood shoulder to the faded metal locker with the small dent where he routinely threw his weight in a display of masculinity firmly believed to (within his own mind) be enforcing his “cool guy” image. Talking of his short lived accomplishments in his created world of excellence within the normal collection of worshipers, Pete then saw Cindy. He viewed this young girl as nothing more than another lust driven vessel within which he could achieve his own teenage accounting of worth at. He then became determined at that moment to sway this confident looking seductress over with the usual flashing of muscular definition and quick speaking. Then the unspeakable occurred, this prey once though part of a simple design of cat and mouse rejected Pete leaving the embarrassed and now mentally reduce boy standing shocked amidst a group of uncertain and weary eyes. Immediately the snickers and mummers of disapproval stripped away the barrier of confidence around Pete seeping into the very essence of manhood he had tried so hard to build for himself. Within a moment of blind rejection and lust for this creature, he then realized he could not have, but desired so greatly over took him at which point he began to chase the girl. Realizing her new complication Cindy then sprinted towards her old 82 Caviler. With haste she entered through the rusted metal doors of her sanctuary quickly enacting the four cylinders of the vehicle into motion. Pete, upon seeing this then ran to his parent purchased dodge viper knowing he would need to quickly begin his pursuit if he was to avoid losing her in the back streets of his home town.

                Pete quickly accelerated to speeds well above the local speed limits in his blinded lustful scramble. Filling the gap of road between him and his soon to be woman of passion, the boy in his mental haze then began to swerve in violent attempt to coax Cindy into submission as if to suggest harm if she refused to end the pursuit. A weak of willed being might have then pulled to the side and allowed the incoming intrusion of self-protection, but Cindy was no being of average will. Thus, the chase lead deep into the woods. As wheels shook, rattled by gravel and faulted unmaintained road way, familiar terrain soon turned to unsure swift eye movements towards an unfamiliar landscape. Finally, when she felt she might be close to shaking Pete off of her dust ridden trail, viewing the distance of his vehicle in the small image on her mirror; a terrible miscalculation of distance forged itself in the form of a swift curve in the road slanted into a quick drop some hundred feet down to the twisted bank of a woodland river. The drop would be the end of this reclusive brilliant and athletic human beings mortal existence in the small town which she had been raised. A tragedy, one spoken of for years by all the local residents, and one that would forever destroy the happiness and reputation of the once clouded mind of Pete thusly had come to conclusion.

                 It would not be till years later that Pete now grown and sheltered within his own created shell of sorrow and seclusion would return to ill-fated bank of his teen love’s grave. Crouching to the cross in his tattered jeans and torn loose fitted sweatshirt, Pete allowed the years of repression to explode from his body in the form of tears falling to the slow current of the river. After a few moments he recovered his baring and glanced again towards the cross. He then noticed the small black case holding his love’s most valued possession. The small carved flute that her sisters had crafted for her on the occasion of some birthday now forgotten in the sorrows of her death. Pete lifted this delicate piece and held it to his lips. Once more tears of pain fell from his eyes now falling lightly over the curves and openings of the instrument. Breathing in deeply, he then exhaled a sigh, upon which the device uttered a soft note; a note that would resonate with him in memory and soul many years past its occurrence as sign of beauty and excellence that stood for the mistakes of obsession that had so cold ended the wonderful pattern of life that he had never truly grasped before.    

Initiation of Our Creation

Initiation

Doubts within the minds of individuals who past thought ill of such "silly" creations of this new world soon began to understand the once thought jumbled spoken word of the mythology creator and soon began to view the world around them in a slightly different tone. By tone I mean they soon saw the driven purpose of this leader of ideas. Magic, is not the purpose but understanding. Understanding that the world before them is not the new mysterious and massive entity that has alluded so many. It is merely history on repeat. All things before their eyes is merely action with-held in a precedent marked down through time from origin to ear to mouth from mouth to mouth a far and finally to book to be written again and rewritten and interpreted by many in their own creative expression to understanding of these actions as we know them today. Such a massive world of written art and painted art and spoken or sang art reduced in such a way that one would at first glance assume that no work of art or expression could then possibility be original or creative. But there in lies the genius of our mythological deity's words. Just because something is not fully original does not make it any less beautiful or creative or intelligent. Thus, we take our step into his initiation. This initiation, like so many others, is characterized by pain. This pain though is not the physical pain that forces one into adulthood through trauma but a different pain altogether. The pain of expansion. Expansion of both understanding as well as expansion of ability to piece together the clues that develop into the beauty or a world that is preceded by many but seen only by those currently reside within it. Originality. That is what one student has absorbed in this white haired speakers words. Not originality to create but to see and absorb and interpret the world surrounding us all in unique way to make it our own. How then could one say with all intended truthfulness that originality is dead? How can we dismiss a great work of art expressed in any manner merely because it has been done a different way before? Personally I say we cannot which through much struggle I have come to understand. Mind once formed scientifically opens a new route to another way of viewing life. The road to this path stricken with much struggle and pain. Thus, initiation. Through pain and struggle many may find that a closed mind for the sake of comfortable study hinders and leaves so much unseen which thus proposes in a unique matter a new age question of where do we all stand without forced initiation? Our new world formed only from 1:10 to 2 three days a week, may have occurred in an insignificant period of time in an insignificant manner in an otherwise insignificant town and campus compared to the infinite expanse that is our history, but the to those that have been enveloped into this seemingly insignificant space of time, an entirely different view is seen of a world that is full of uniquely formed individuals and ideas that constantly flows in and out of the threads that hold our humanity together from generation to generation in the endless tapestry of sad and angry and happy beauty that is our universe. 

A Different View of Creation

Origins of Our Mythological course

 In the beginning there was a gathering, souls all different, not one like the others yet all connected in intention. Intention, a word used to describe the aspiration to enter the course with open mind and open hopes to achieve the standard of approval we all aspire towards. Eager eyes of curious individuals or some anxious twists and turns of the bodies of others and of course confident postured grins of the prized student achievers sitting, notebook poised as if to march into the bloody front of education pressing the lines of mental battle forward into the dark depths of ignorance. Regardless of mental state, the mass of minds and bodies crowd into the small (uncomfortably small mind you) desks of our imprisonment. Fitting, the idea of such ordinary objects such as desks to mentally ascertain the image of such a negative cells of stone and metal entrapment, for beyond the simple drive of self improvement, many are held in their cold small cell by means of threat. Not by threat of physical pain or solitary isolation as one might traditionally expect in such imprisonment ideologies but by something much worse, failure. Thus, the image of our creationism is set in place. Eyes forward we see the mortal, yet for all intensive purposes, godly figure of our situation. Our creator our forger our shaper of unformed mythological thought take his place in the front of the classroom. An unsettled silence settles over the once quietly murmuring faces of our class. Thoughts streaming in each ones eyes wonderment setting in place. Agonizing curiosity taking hold. Finally our deity speaks! A rambling of words takes place. We hear of discovery and tree hugging and a variety of other most confusing concepts set in place. This man of age? This professor of rambling intentions is to lead us forward in our understanding of such a vast world that is greek and roman mythology? But how!? Toss us to a world that we see most everyday of routine and tell us to see "magic" in places we have looked countless times before and seen nothing. Compare our lives to those of ancient lineage, that is our goal. No wordy sheets of terms no by the page tests and quizzes. Independence sets in pulling some closer to creator. Eyes and minds scrambling to piece together what is being spoken while other withdraw, minds clouded no..formed to the working world around us. Driven by the anticipated words of superiors and scheduled testing, then set into this world created for us to explore without traditional guidance. Withdrawn, these students would sit with weary cold eyes doubting in the purpose of the course. Thus, a stage or both curiosity and doubt was weaved into a new world that only exists Monday, Wednesday, and Friday  1:10 to roughly 2, give or take a minute.