So I was having this conversation with
my dad right before the turn of the new year, and he was sharing with
me an insight from the book Ishmael, about a gorilla sage. The
conversation initiated a cascade of insight in me for which I'm just
profoundly grateful. I'll offer a spoiler: I have come to love money!
Anybody who knows me will find that a statement bit odd. If you want
to know why, you'll have to read on... and on... and on, considering
that I intend to write this little story in three separate parts.
So here goes. Part I: Murderous
Domination
(Or, as some folks like to call it: The
Odyssey)
The foundation of human civilization is
generally agreed upon as the discovery and expansion of agriculture
in the the fertile crescent. This expansion, my dad recently told me,
was a process, first, of taking sticks and rocks, and killing
everything in the earth within a particular area, and then planting
in it the food you want. This 'kill and take' strategy turned out to
be so successful, that folks doing it decided to expand. They posted
a banner over their wattle-and-daub huts: AGRICULTURE: NOW EXPANDING!
COME VISIT US AT OUR THREE NEW LOCATIONS! Not only did they kill
plants and take their land, they started to kill people and
take their land. Enter Civilization,
stage right.
It was the birth of the myth of
Odysseus. If you've read The Odyssey, you'll recognize
the fundamental archetype of early civilization.
'Kill who you want, take what you
want.'
If you were too weak to do it, then you
were fair game for the strong. The ideal of perfection-- the goal
toward which everybody aspired was Strength and Power. Morality
didn't factor in, because if you sucked at killing people, then you
were a failure and deserved to die. A significant offshoot, by the
way, was that simply being born a woman made you a primary target--
not necessarily for death, but certainly for absolute domination (a
noble concession on the part of the horny warlords).
The truth of the matter is that there
was really no room in this story for women at all, except as a bit
part.
For those who haven't read The
Odyssey, a little background: Odysseus has fought long and hard
in the Trojan War (chronicled in The Iliad), and is now on his
way home. The journey turns out to be just absurdly arduous. He's
kidnapped for years by a beautiful nymph (I know, right?), attacked
and captured by a terrible cyclops, once again attacked by a whole
cadre of gargantuan sea monsters. He meets a bunch of people from
across the sea and beats them all up. All of this takes so damn long
that everybody just ends up figuring he's dead.
The primary offshoot: a virtual army of
suitors descend on Penelope (Odysseus' wife), and start killing each
other to prove their worth. When Odysseus finally returns home, the
story climaxes in an absolutely horrifying, graphic bloodbath. Homer
seemed to take genuine, gruesome pleasure in writing this part.
Here's essentially what happens (if I
remember correctly): Odysseus leaps through a window and slices and
dices his way through every man in the great hall of his home,
leaving literally not a single one left alive. He then, of course,
sweeps Penelope into his arms, and shows her what it's like to be
with a real man.
The story obviously chronicles the
typical heroes journey of myth. One could even say that he's the
primary model by which the journey is defined. He must face and beat
unbeatable odds, a process that causes within him a total
transformation. Through doing this, he demonstrates that he is worthy
of the transformation. And the measure of his worth? Strength and
Power. The transformation? Absolute, omnipotent Strength and Power.
He's like the US Armed Forces.
There was something else in there about
sheep, but I can't remember what it was.
So my dad gave me this insight into the
beginning of civilization. The part about agriculture I knew. But the
part about killing people and taking their land right off the bat was
new to me. Oh, and, yeah, I have to admit with some embarrassment
that I haven't yet read Ishmael. I just bought it, and read
the first few pages, and I've been telling everybody I know, man,
you've got to read this book! Turns out everybody already has. Oops.
But it got me thinking about those old
myths. It got me thinking about Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great,
and, you know, those guys. The ones who killed whoever they wanted,
and took whatever they wanted.
Life for your average Joe would have
sucked back in those days. And for the average Jane, forget about it!
We think that we have problems with sexism now! Or, I don't know,
avoiding having your head chopped off by any guy who happens to
decide that he wants to be great-- considering that that was the
measure of greatness back in the day. That would be a bummer. To live
there. And stuff.
So, in conclusion (ehem, ehem) I've had
a little myth of my own for a while now. Here's the story of my myth
(give a shout if you find it familiar): Human beings have been stuck
for a long time. We've been riding the same old treadmill for so long
that we're now well into the process of killing the planet. Our
existing story, our myth, our archetype, if left unchecked, is
invariably going to kill us all, and it might not take all that long
to do it. We might actually be very near the end of this insane,
deadly trajectory. And now the time has come! Our stagnation must
end! It is time for us to gather together, to seek out our deepest
internal resources, from our heart of hearts, and transform the very
nature of human being! If the planet herself, and all of the
beautiful living beings here are to survive, then nothing short of
absolute and total transformation will do.
Why is this a myth? Well, I'll
certainly stand behind the 'Transform or die!' part. Not much debate
there. It's the 'We've been stagnant for a long time' part that has
been all turned up on it's head for me. As far as I can tell, we've
only just tipped the global balance from the previous story of 'Kill!
Take! Kill!' to a new modern story back in World War II. That wasn't
very long ago.
Why does this distinction matter? Well,
I'd much rather be attempting to take on the impossible with my
fellow humans if it's actually true that we've done it before.
And here I end. Tune in for next week's
exciting installment, in which the following questions will be
answered: What is our modern story that has replaced the 'Holly sh*t,
that guy has a really big sword!' story? What's up with that Frodo
Baggins guy anyway? And, why the hell did Jesse say that he loves
money?!
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