#myth-and-story

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Writing
fromwww.theguardian.com
4 hours ago

Life of Pi author Yann Martel: I thought the Iliad was a book for old farts then I started getting ideas'

Yann Martel's new novel, Son of Nobody, reimagines the Trojan War from the perspective of an unknown soldier, blending humor and domesticity with scholarly footnotes.
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
3 days ago

The Invisible Game: Jordan's Negative Space and Jung's Shadow

Michael Jordan and Carl Jung both emphasize the importance of recognizing overlooked spaces for extraordinary performance and deeper self-understanding.
History
fromWorld History Encyclopedia
5 days ago

Truths Wrapped in Fiction: Mesopotamian Naru Literature: Originality in Writing Ancient Bestsellers

Originality in ancient literary works was less valued than in modern times, with authors often assuming identities of famous figures.
Brooklyn
fromConde Nast Traveler
5 days ago

My Dad Can't Travel Like He Used to, but Slowing Down Doesn't Mean Stopping

A journey through Indonesia showcases the challenges and joys of traveling with a parent facing mobility issues.
Books
fromPsychology Today
1 week ago

Fiction Is Indispensable to Life's Journey

Fiction is essential for emotional connection, learning, and social cognition, allowing us to escape reality and engage deeply with narratives.
Writing
fromJezebel
1 week ago

The King of My Unrealized Mythical Erotica Dreams

Spring inspires imagination and exploration of fantasy erotica, highlighting the appeal of art that transcends traditional boundaries.
History
fromWorld History Encyclopedia
1 week ago

Mesopotamian Naru Literature: The World's First Historical Fiction

Naru Literature featured historical figures in fictional narratives, shaping perceptions of history and humanity's relationship with the divine.
Arts
fromHarvard Gazette
2 weeks ago

Is this art Celtic? It's complicated. - Harvard Gazette

The Harvard Art Museums' exhibition showcases the diverse history and contributions of Celtic art across various time periods.
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
1 week ago

The Hidden Danger in How We Choose Leaders

Charisma and confidence can mislead evaluations of a leader's moral character, emphasizing the need to distinguish between leadership style and true values.
fromThe Conversation
4 weeks ago

Today's obsession with authenticity isn't new - being true to yourself has troubled philosophers for centuries

All of us live in an age where we're bombarded by social media and artificial intelligence - when striving to be your authentic self becomes an increasingly difficult task. Yet, even if it has somehow become a common goal, it is unclear how many of us can truly define the "authenticity" that we say we are pursuing.
Philosophy
fromWorld History Encyclopedia
3 weeks ago

Mesopotamian Literature: The Earliest Works of the Imagination

Writing was created in response to the need to communicate over long distances in trade and, initially, was focused on the purely practical aspects of record-keeping. Scribes in ancient Mesopotamia recorded what commercial goods had been shipped to which destination, their quantity, purpose, and cost.
History
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
3 weeks ago

Why You Don't Have to Choose Just One Version of Yourself

Humans possess multiple self-aspects across different roles and contexts, and greater self-complexity provides psychological resilience against stress and setbacks.
fromPsychology Today
4 weeks ago

The Cave You Didn't Build

Plato's choice of this word is deliberate. He is not describing neutral carriers. He is describing people whose job is manufacturing a convincing reality for an audience that cannot see behind the curtain. Here is what matters clinically: the conjurers are not necessarily villains. They may be devoted parents, conscientious teachers, or well-meaning community leaders.
Philosophy
History
fromWorld History Encyclopedia
3 weeks ago

What Defines a Civilization?

Civilization requires a writing system, government, food surplus, labor division, and urbanization, with Mesopotamia recognized as the birthplace of civilization due to its early city construction around 5400 BCE.
fromBig Think
1 month ago

From myth to machine: The technological evolution of storytelling

I wanted to write a book about how the smartphone changed the world, but the more I researched, the clearer it became that phones were actually the latest step in this evolution of storytelling technology that stretches all the way back to prehistoric times.
Books
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

What Archetypal Psychology Is and Why It Matters

Modern psychology excels at identifying symptoms but often overlooks deeper narrative patterns that shape human experience and meaning.
Philosophy
fromBig Think
1 month ago

The 3 colors: What folktales teach about how to grow wise

European folktales use red, black, and white colors to represent three modes of being that map human maturation: red as ambition and life force, black as introspection and shadow, and white as wisdom and transcendence.
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

What We Can Learn From Religion About Values That Do Not Expire

We are living through one of the most disorienting periods in recorded history. The AI race is accelerating toward ever faster, ever more sophisticated automation and optimization. Agentic AI systems are moving from research labs into workplaces, healthcare, and governance. Geopolitical tensions are restructuring alliances faster than institutions can adapt. And planetary systems are signaling, with increasing urgency, that our current trajectory is unsustainable. Amid all this, it is dangerously easy to lose sight of a foundational question: What are we actually optimizing for?
Artificial intelligence
Business
fromFast Company
1 month ago

Yes, everyone can be creative

A culture of creativity can be deliberately built through organizational systems, not an innate gift reserved for a few.
Miscellaneous
fromThe Walrus
2 months ago

"I Know I'm Not Going to Win": Why People Set Out on Impossible Quests | The Walrus

Liz White relentlessly canvasses for the Animal Protection Party of Canada while openly acknowledging she will not win in an affluent Toronto riding.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
1 month ago

Myth, monsters and making sense of a disenchanted world: why everyone is reading fantasy

Fantasy is a dominant, all-pervading cultural form offering diverse subgenres, serious artistic value, and lineages from varied creators and traditions.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
1 month ago

Why some of us build entire worlds inside our heads and then feel homesick for places that never existed - Silicon Canals

Elaborate inner worlds built through imagination are common cognitive features that fulfill emotional needs, characterized by specific details and consistent logic that can persist for decades.
Mental health
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

The Importance of Narrative Case Studies

Clinical case narratives remain vital educational tools, evolving with media to teach clinicians, normalize clients' experiences, and support suicide-related clinical training.
Business
fromFast Company
2 months ago

Navigating the ghosts of cultures past

Organizational culture constantly changes; leaders must discern which legacy cultural elements to retain and which to remove while balancing enduring beliefs with adaptive practices.
US politics
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

A War of Narratives

Clear, simple narratives improve understanding; truth-focused, superior narratives are necessary to counter disinformation and avoid equating falsehoods with facts.
Science
fromPsychology Today
1 month ago

How Shared Symbols Create Lives Worth Living

Shared cultural meanings form a second inheritance system that accumulates knowledge rapidly and shapes institutions, norms, and human cognition.
Music production
fromBustle
2 months ago

The Disney Destiny's 'Hercules' Production Is Part-Show, Part-Homecoming

Disney Destiny's Hercules stage show combines massive technical production and nostalgia, featuring elaborate effects, a returning Hades actor, and a cast with deep Disney ties.
Women
fromIndependent
2 months ago

Brigid and me: 'Yes, she healed the sick and fed the poor - but she also made her brother's eyes explode when he crossed her'

Brigid is a multifaceted symbol of Irish womanhood encompassing healing, creativity, fire, poetry, protection, activism, environmentalism, and unbounded female identity.
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

Patriarchy, Religion, and the Myth of "Real Sex"

"No, not yet. I am waiting until I am serious with someone, and until then, I am only doing oral and mutual masturbation. My reply, "That is sex!" This usually gets a response of, "Well, I meant f*cking," which they equate to sex. Nothing else. I have to remind my clients that fellatio and cunnilingus is called "oral sex" for a reason. That is still sex."
LGBT
Parenting
fromBuzzFeed
1 month ago

People Are Sharing The Most Creative "White Lie" Their Parents Told Them Growing Up

Parents often tell playful, creative white lies to children that later reveal themselves as humorous misconceptions in adulthood.
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

Heroism Isn't Either Real or Imagined-It's Both

Are heroes real, or are they simply stories we tell ourselves? Either heroes are objectively real-brave people who perform extraordinary acts of courage and sacrifice-or heroism is merely in our heads, a social construction shaped by culture, media, and wishful thinking. This debate shows up everywhere: in classrooms, in popular culture, and even among scholars who study heroism for a living.
Philosophy
fromemptywheel
2 months ago

How Do You Want Your Family to Remember You? - emptywheel

The Stasi, the secret police, were legendary for their data files. Their work was based on instilling fear, and they induced stunningly amazing numbers of East Germans into informing on their neighbors. Something along the lines of 1 in 6 East Germans were informants, whether out of fear or out of approval of what the East German government was doing.
US politics
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

Publishing Untold Stories From the Worlds of the Subconscious

Unfortunately, hypnosis has a negative reputation among the general public, in large part because of how it's been portrayed by the movie and entertainment industry. Also, I was aware that in the late 19th century there were many false positive and negative claims about hypnosis that soured the public on the possibility that hypnosis could be helpful. I did not want to create or add to a 21st-century perception that hypnosis was quackery, and therefore chose to withhold telling about some of the most amazing events that I had encountered with my patients when I first wrote about hypnosis, because these stories might have been too hard to believe.
Mental health
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

Why It's Worth Exploring Your Dreams

In a recent talk in Zurich, German psychoanalyst Konstantin Roessler surveyed the current state of dream research. Tracing some of the earlier scientific studies on dreams, he made a renewed case for the importance of dreams. Even formerly skeptical neuroscientists have now begun to see the meaning, purpose, and value of dreams for everyday life and overall psychic health. Dreams as Meaningless "Content"
Science
#greek-mythology
fromdesignyoutrust.com
2 months ago

An Artist Draws Mythic Chimeras And Warrior Specters In Flat, Beardsleyesque Illustrations That Bridge Antiquity And Modern Surrealism

Two Chinese Artists Created This Terrifying Hyper-realistic Sculpture Of The Falling Angel An Artist Captured the Innocence of Childhood by Photographing His Three Sons Florey's Unforgettable Alternative Movie Posters Sensitive Ballerina Watercolour Portraits By Liu Yi Artist Turns Animals Into Original Characters That Look Like They Belong In An Anime Russian Artist Adds Digital Pixel Glitches To Animal Tattoos. And It's Awesome!
Arts
fromSilicon Canals
1 month ago

7 things people do when telling stories that make others tune out immediately without realizing it - Silicon Canals

We've all been there. Someone starts telling a story, and within seconds, your mind starts wandering. Maybe you pull out your phone, suddenly remember an urgent email, or find yourself mentally reorganizing your weekend plans. The storyteller doesn't notice. They keep going, completely unaware that they've lost their audience. After interviewing over 200 people for various articles, I've noticed patterns in how people communicate their experiences. Some captivate you from the first word, while others lose you before they've even gotten to the point.
Writing
fromMail Online
1 month ago

Mysterious symbols spanning the globe hint at a lost civilization

His investigation began after identifying recurring giant T-shapes, three-level indents, and step pyramids carved into ancient stones worldwide. 'These specific symbols that are built in different size proportions, and the symbols are found in ancient stones around the world, are not supposed to exist; no cultures are supposed to have any cross-platform,' LaCroix explained. The symbols appear in locations ranging from Turkey's Van region to South America and Cambodia.
History
fromHarvard Gazette
1 month ago

Moved by what's missing in Homer's 'Harrow' - Harvard Gazette

At first sight, Winslow Homer's " The Brush Harrow," which depicts two young boys, a horse, and a harrow against an arid landscape, evokes a feeling of somber isolation - but it's hard to pinpoint why. During a talk by curator Horace D. Ballard at the Harvard Art Museums on Jan. 29, visitors learned that Homer painted the scene in 1865, as the Civil War was ending, making the emotional underpinnings of the work clearer.
Arts
Books
fromThe Atlantic
2 months ago

What a Fantasy Can Reveal About Real Life

Fictional lies and imagined worlds can reveal deeper human truths through protagonists who fabricate realities, exposing inner desires, vulnerabilities, and psychological unraveling.
History
fromMedievalists.net
1 month ago

New Medieval Books: Celtic Magic - Medievalists.net

Ancient and medieval Celtic-speaking peoples maintained distinctive magical beliefs and practices whose evidence appears in inscriptions, classical accounts, medieval manuscripts, charms, and medical recipes.
Psychology
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

The Psychology of the Collective Unconscious

A shared, inherited collective unconscious shapes human emotions, recurring archetypal imagery, and convergent dream themes across cultures, especially during times of stress.
Philosophy
fromBig Think
1 month ago

Which of the 5 philosophical archetypes best describes you?

Everyone engages in philosophy through wonder, logic, interrogation, introspection, dialectic, and advocacy, expressed via diverse archetypal approaches such as the questioning Sphinx.
Psychology
fromSilicon Canals
2 months ago

Quote of the day by Carl Jung: "Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate" - Silicon Canals

Unconscious patterns and autopilot behavior drive most decisions, causing repeated life outcomes until they are consciously examined and changed.
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Wise by Frank Tallis review how to turn your midlife crisis into a hero's journey

Following some of the arguments in Ernest Becker's 1973 study The Denial of Death, he proposes that such crises are at least partly the result of the western reluctance to face mortality. In Britain, we eschew open coffins, for instance. When our relatives die, as my mother did two years ago, they die in a hospital rather than at home. We can hardly even bring ourselves to say die, preferring euphemisms such as pass away.
Books
History
fromWorld History Encyclopedia
1 month ago

Ghosts in Ancient Mesopotamia: Just Another Aspect of Life

Ghosts were integral to Mesopotamian belief: deceased spirits required proper burial and ongoing remembrance or they could return to haunt the living.
fromThe Conversation
1 month ago

An epic border: Finland's poetic masterpiece, the Kalevala, has roots in 2 cultures and 2 countries

At the outset of the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, a singer bemoans his separation from a beloved friend who grew up beside him. Today, the friends rarely meet "näillä raukoilla rajoilla, poloisilla Pohjan mailla" - lines which translator Keith Bosley renders "on these poor borders, the luckless lands of the North." The Kalevala, a poetic masterpiece of nearly 23,000 lines, first appeared in 1835. Now, nearly 200 years later, those "luckless lands of the North" are an increasingly tense border zone.
Philosophy
Books
fromSlate Magazine
2 months ago

Are We Just Recycling Old Stories, Ideas, and Styles?

21st-century culture is abundant and accessible but suffers an innovation deficit, leaving a "blank space" where original cultural creation should emerge.
Philosophy
fromWarpweftandway
2 months ago

ToC: Asian Philosophy 36:1

Buddhist, Confucian, Daoist, and Islamic mystical traditions examine creation, uncertainty, relational personhood, epistemic virtues, commitment, and critiques of Confucian self-cultivation.
Books
fromwww.theguardian.com
2 months ago

Arborescence by Rhett Davis review why would people turn into trees?

Cross-species human-to-tree transformation becomes large-scale voluntary protest and ecological strategy, centered on an ambivalent man and an advocate promoting arborescence.
Philosophy
fromPsychology Today
2 months ago

The Myth of Progress

Relentless pursuit of progress can shrink life, prioritizing efficiency and achievements over health, relationships, and meaningful depth—becoming a poisoned gift.
fromwww.npr.org
2 months ago

Feeling cooped up? Get out of town with this delightful literary road trip

Tom Layward, the narrator and main character of Ben Markovits' new novel, The Rest of Our Lives, introduces himself in a curious way: On the very first page of the book, he talks, matter-of-factly, about the affair his wife, Amy, had 12 years ago, when their two kids were young. Amy, who's Jewish, got involved at a local synagogue in Westchester; Tom, who was raised Catholic and is clearly not a joiner, remained on the sidelines.
Books
fromFast Company
2 months ago

Why everything you think about yourself could be an illusion

For most of my life, I thought of myself as a fixed entity: This is me. These are my traits. This is who I am. I assumed I was essentially that same person who loved sugary cereal at age 8, fried chicken at 12, and tequila at 21, and who still loves those things now, even if my stomach disagrees. But this is an illusion. Neuroscience, physics, and Buddhism all agree: There is nothing fixed about us-not even close.
Philosophy
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