"LIFE AND MYTH"

Today, we did the same assignment as yesterday. We were required to read analyze and summarize The Stories We Live By: Personal Myths and the Making of the Self by Dan McAdams. However, today's piece was on the subject of stories and our personal myths. The preface explains that identity is what is about a lie that provides meaning, unity and purpose. As we continue into the introduction we learn that you have to know the identity and life story of someone to truly know them. And by extension, in order to learn more about people and ourselves, we tell stories. From these stories each of us creates a personal myth which "is a special kind of story that each of us naturally constructs to bring together the different parts of ourselves and our lives into a purposeful and convincing whole" (Dan McAdams, page 12). We make ourselves through myth. As the work continues, we read about Margaret Sands story and how she is forming her personal myth. Her story is a tragic one and after we read of her life we continue on to learn what a story really is. All stories have a setting, characters, initiating event, attempt, consequence and a reaction. After clarifying the grammar of a story we realize, through examples, just how much we are impacted by stories. They provide us with life experience, provide us with a common structure, are related to life and measure time. The list continues. Stories also entertain us, instruct, organize our thoughts, and even mend us when we are broken. The writer goes on to relate the story to the myth and say that a sacred story is the same as a myth, and myths accomplish the same thing for society as a personal myth accomplishes for the human being. However, we still need personal myths because we need to discover ourselves/our identities because society no longer tells us how to live. The author continues on and explains how the myth develops and concludes with the connection between our personal myths and the rest of the world--the stories we create influence the stories of other people, those stories give rise to others, and soon there is meaning and connections within a web of story making and living (McAdams). Our personal myths/lives help create the world we live in, which is at the same time creating us (McAdams).

In regard to the assignment summarized above I see no distinct correlation between what I read in the piece and what I have been working on in my film class. I do realize however, that I am currently writing my own personal myth and searching for my identity. Many other people my age are going through the same process and I suspect that we may do a project in the future which will help to reveal our own personal myths and stories to the public.