Carl Jung, the psychiatrist, and the mythologists Karl Kerenyi and
Joseph Campbell talk about or allude to the "personal myth."
This idea has led to everything from typology studies to Follow
Your Bliss, even to gods/goddesses types.
Long ago I wandered into this subject matter, trying to understand
better who I might be--or at least find myself in all this maze of
approaches. I already had a sense of my own archetypal structure
when I undertook some five years of dreamwork--on my own,
but with the help of a lot of psychological books as well as works
on symbolism. Anyway, I started out this project not knowing very
much about my self--and, in the end, I knew lots more.
So--is all this effort really narcissistic or actually rather meaningful?
Could be both, since a person who is interested in self no doubt
can be tinged with a certain amount of narcissism; however, on the
other hand, it can be quite helpful to discover one's personal myth.
Such can provide an archetypal infrastructure for one's life. And,
true, sometimes this special infrastructure can come in the guise
of archaic symbolism. Our mind and brain are both subject to
such historical-cultural residue, and psychiatrists have written
tomes about how to work through such mental material.
As for myself, long ago I learned about my own personal myth.
And a few years back I wrote two short stories--"Roman Trek"
and "Templar True" that were actually accounts of my own
archetypal infrastructure--albeit fictionally over-layed. Found
on the links margin of this essay site, one can click onto these
stories.
These stories are really about my *personal myth*, which has
unfolded over many years. They also encompasses my varied
interests. But now I am arriving towards the end of my personal
myth. This doesn't mean that I am going to slip away anytime soon--
I hope--but rather I have reached a new state-of-being when it
comes to my personal myth. It's about yet another transition within
my personal infrastructure that surely will involve new experience.
And who knows, but likely I will have to write yet another story
one day.
