Wordplay Says "Auld Lang Syne"

When I started this blog in January 2010, I was beginning my dissertation, so Wordplay was one of two creative ventures occupying my thoughts. I saw it as a sort of journal accompanying my dissertation research and writing; sometimes I worked out my thoughts in the blog and later went back to see what I had written once I was deeper into the research. Besides that, though, it was a way to put into practice what I'd been taught--how to look at the world through a mythic lens. I was very excited about it then and still am. When I talked to people about depth psychology and mythology, it usually seemed to strike some kind of a chord, and I felt a wider audience might also be receptive . . . so that's how Wordplay came about. I was having fun with what I was doing and thought I'd have even more fun writing about it.

At some point, I wrote a description of the blog that included a lot of the "descriptors" or buzz words that I thought would help people find it, but when I read that summary now (whether or not it helps in search results) it seems too wordy. If you were to ask me now, I'd just tell you that, pure and simple, this is a blog about the mythology of everyday life. The idea that ordinary life, and not just the doings of legendary figures from the distant past, is the material of mythology was one of the most exciting ideas I ever came across, and I think other people have also found that to be true.

Reading mythic texts from various traditions with a depth psychological eye was one thing; we spent a lot of time on this in my program, and it was a transformative experience. Learning how to look at the present-day world to see the myths and archetypes underlying current events was something else, at least for me. With an English degree in my background, I'm used to analyzing literary texts and can talk about the archetypes of any given book or film with a fair degree of comfort. But it seemed to me that for a degree in myth studies to be useful, it would have to encompass more than academic and literary subjects: it would have to provide insight into the world we live in.

The concept of reading events for meaning the same way one reads a literary text takes great skill, in my opinion, and subtlety--a certain amount of fearlessness doesn't hurt either. After all, real life moves and flows and doesn't stay still; it's not fixed on a page. There is no way to "prove" that one's reading of a particular event or phenomenon is "the" correct one, and chances are there are other ways of looking at the same event that are just as useful. We learned the term mythopoesis in my program, which to me means looking at the world the same way you look at a poem. In other words, you're alive to not only what's in front of you, the actual "words on the page," but also the implications of the words, the story that unfolds in between, beneath, and around them. This requires intuition and understanding; knowing what's there is only the first step.

Reading the world mythopoetically is complicated by the fact that, based on my experience anyway, it's often hard to know what the facts are. On any given day, I can read the news and think, "Hmmm, is that what really happened, or is that just what someone said happened?" It's much easier to read events when you know what they are, which may sound like a truism, but as recent events on the U.S. political scene have shown us, basic facts are often in dispute. Much of the news is colored by assumptions and written from a certain point of view. I'm firmly in favor of people expressing their opinions, but first I want to know what the facts are so that I can form my own opinion.

That brings me to an unexpected role I sometimes find myself playing on this blog, the role of mythojournalist. This happened because I often searched in vain for news sources that seemed to dig deep enough and connect the dots between events. Sometimes the what would be there but not the why; often, even the what would be hard to discern in a sea of opinion and misinformation. If an event left me scratching my head, I tried to understand the implications behind it. I certainly never pictured myself as a crusading journalist (book reviews and a little humor are more in my line), but my forays into mythojournalism were born of frustration. I often felt something was missing in other people's reporting, and I tried to fill in the gaps. After all, politics, business, and world affairs are a part of everyday life, too.

And speaking of trying to read events, I feel that our nation, and perhaps the world, is actually in a bit of a precarious position at the moment. I had hoped that when the election was over, things would seem calmer, but that hasn't happened. There's a lot of name-calling and saber-rattling and plenty of people ready to point the finger at anyone but themselves, and if you want me to say what I think the problem is, I'll give you my opinion: I think our nation has a deep unwillingness to look at its own shadow. This translates into: "We are pure; it's other people who have problems."

We seem to be sliding by degrees closer and closer back to a Cold War, which I don't suppose anyone views as desirable. I'm an American, and I support the Constitution, but still I find myself wondering: what's behind all the hostility between Russia and the United States? Is it barely possible that Russia has some legitimate concerns, too, as I have heard one or two American officials suggest? Does it really have to be "us or them"? I don't know who hacked the DNC, and I sincerely hope we find out, but even the facts of the who, what, when, where, and why seem to be in dispute. There are plenty of opinions being expressed, though, and since most of us have been taught to fear Russia, there seems to be a lack of balance to some of the coverage. I'm not saying that allegations of hacking and interference shouldn't be taken seriously; I'd merely like a little more light and less heat.

I will tell you that long ago, when I worked for a newspaper, I was assigned to write a Newspaper in Education supplement on Russia. This was right after the fall of the Soviet Union, and the supplement was meant to give students some background on Russian history. I didn't know much about Russia before I started, and as the country has over a thousand years of history, I feel that what I did merely scratched the surface--but I did come away from the project with a sense of respect for the Russian people, who have survived many difficult periods and apparently have great resiliency. It's a huge country, with many borders to defend, just like the United States. I am neither defending nor condemning Russia, but I am wondering what their point of view is in all the recent fracas. And I'm still not entirely sure I understand what happened in Ukraine.

Once you start looking at the world mythopoetically, your capacity to see things from more than one point of view increases, which I hope is a good thing and not a bad thing. Being understanding of someone else's viewpoint should tend to increase the chances of solving conflicts, not make things worse, according to my understanding of conflict resolution. I'm sincerely hoping there's a willingness on all sides to be honest and open about the real issues, as it seems to me that the world is much too small for this kind of conflict to be a good thing.

Well, six years of Wordplay, and there's much more to come, I hope. Perhaps someday soon I'll be able to get back to more lighthearted subjects, though I reserve the right to speak up on any subject if I feel the need. One thing I can tell you for sure is that Joseph Campbell was right: mythology is a call to adventure, though as is the usual way of things, the adventure may be different from what you imagined it to be. I was a writer without a topic before I started my study of mythology, and that blew my imagination wide open. It also helped me discover some personal qualities I didn't quite know I had. If you're feeling an interest in it yourself, my only caution is to be prepared: once you open your mind, things never quite look the same way again.