In Defence of Myth-Making

It has been argued that the articles I create are ‘myth-making’. So, what does that mean? Here is a definition I found online, that seems to align with what I think of when I hear ‘myth-making’.

Definition: ‘myth-making is the process of creating narratives, legends, and stories to explain natural phenomena, cultural beliefs, or historical events. It involves crafting symbolic tales to convey moral lessons, cultural values, and a collective identity, helping societies make sense of their world.’

In this article, I want to talk about how I think ‘myth-making’ is inevitable, to a degree. The first question that arises is this: How is it possible to talk about your work and experiences without myth-making?

Any writing is inherently biased. This is especially true if you are writing about your own interactions, memories, relationships — you are the source. This happens even if you are trying to be as accurate as possible. When I write, there are still omissions to protect myself and others. The ways in which everyone perceives events are slightly different too.

That is just the way it is. There is no alternative, it is the best we have. You can go even further with this really regarding languages too. The connotation of what words mean and how they impact us, as opposed to their ‘literal’ translation — the whole ‘Inuits have several words for snow’ thing. Then you go into the temporal element, how words and their meanings change with time and context. So, there is bias of the writer, the reader, and the systems of language themselves…

So, if this is inevitable with language and the recording of one’s own interactions with the world, why are we so critical with self-published writing?

I feel that this is a modern issue. We are less critical of this practice when looking back at people’s writing from the past.

There is also the caveat, that if someone is seen as noteworthy, then so are their words. We are in an era where most people can have a public facing voice, and suddenly when you or I can talk about what reality is, as opposed to ‘great men’ and ‘leaders’, we need to be careful of bias.

There are also systematic, cultural, and ethical shifts in this different data age. We have GDPR, privacy rules, and similar legal fears. Acknowledging others openly is a ‘bad thing,’ and what you describe may be a protected element of one’s life.

Our digital communication is one that evaporates. Email accounts getting deleted after two years of inactivity. Peer to peer messaging services. Social media empires collapsing. Policy changes causing previously okay ‘content’ to get deleted. On top of that, we have the death of letters.

Overall, we have less opportunity for ‘natural’ myth-making and documentation.

My ideal scenario would be that I write about what is happening, and someone else writes about what is happening, and the multiple accounts of everyone creates a fuller picture of what is happening. I want a bible situation. The book of John. The book of Paul. The book of Me. The book of You.

That way a lot more of what I talk about can be verified, or heck, even challenged (which would be fun). Alas, I cannot force everyone to write. And, most bloggers, or article writers, or whatever you call them, do not write about others. So even if you convinced them to write, convincing them to describe the room and those within it is an even harder task. Again, this potentially links back to consent, and the new GDPR world we live in. To write about others is seen as taking their agency away.

My big worry is that if I don’t write things as they happen, they get lost. Recollection is not viewing the TV within your head, but remaking the scene from fragments of a fragment of a memory. It helps to give future you, and anyone else reading, more context clues so less has to be assumed. So, you write them down. You don’t know what will be important later, so you write down as much as you can, or take photos, or keep old calendars. You keep the pieces of your life.

This act leaves a bad taste in the mouths of some. ‘Why do you think you are so important that anyone would need to know you woke up at 8AM on the 10th of July, and ate a fried egg’? It can make you feel egotistical, or that you are archiving life rather than living it. Though, I think it will always be seen as self-important to talk about yourself and your work.

However, your life is important and has meaning — to you. And mine, is important and has meaning — to me. And yes, sometimes, where those bridges of importance cross over, it’s nice.

Meaning is something as people we try to understand and articulate, even if only to ourselves. And our lives are not these collections of big moments, but the trivial stacking upon itself. Yes, big moments happen, but they start with waking up, and eating, and brushing our teeth.

Then, the ‘issue’ of myth-making is attributing value to, and trying to understand, your own life.

All writing about one’s own life is self-centred. I don’t think it is for individual writers to smack readers on the head and say, ‘hey look dummy, I am a person with my own biases and wants in the world’. It is exhausting to always ask permission to just be. Value has shifted from truth to risk-mitigation.

We should not all be punished for, or think we are responsible for, the critical thinking capabilities of the entire world. The real difficult thing is, we need to worry about those that actively lie to those who know no better. It is the situation where it is easier to convince someone well dressed to fix their tie, than for someone running and screaming outside to wear any clothes in the first place. I feel we need to pick better battles.

I have ended up on the side of ‘exist how you want to exist’. Any way of existing has its drawbacks and upsides to yourself and others.

I’ve thought about this heavily since doing my Psychology A-levels many moons ago. Each domain, be it cognitive, behavioural, clinical, and even psychoanalytic psychology (there are many more). All of these areas make really good points, and when you listen you nod along and say, “well that makes sense”. However, they do not fit neatly together. They overlap, and they conflict. You can easily agree with two different studies that disprove one another. However, does this mean you do not try and understand? I feel that all you have got to do is acknowledge that your way of doing things is only one of the possible lenses, and some things you see through it will be clearer than others, and also fuzzier than others. That is how I feel about autoethnographical writing. Of course there are issues to it, but sometimes you cannot help it. The flaws are its strengths.

With many of the issues that accompany my writing, an alternative option exists. That is, ‘keep it to yourself’, or in a more nuanced way, ‘keep your raw reflections to yourself, and put forward only what is necessary’. With this, I am in two minds.

1) I feel I already do this to a degree. There are many thoughts I do not share. This is both to protect others and myself. I do not write about private conversations or leak text messages (without asking). I do not reveal sensitive information about myself or others (and in stances when I do, I try to weigh the risk). If I have an argument with someone, or do not like them particularly, I do not put that out into the world. Sometimes this is to the detriment to the points I want to make, and from an ethics standpoint this causes multidirectional bias. If I share it, it is an ethical violation. If I do not share it, it could be considered lying by omission.

2) What I put out into the world has this magical quality of proving later points I make. If I were to make an assertion, let’s say about ‘chance and mundaneness’, being able to dig through an article I already shared with you for evidence, does this not come across as being more valid? The idea that ‘I am not just making up things in the moment to prove a point’. The more raw the initial sharing of information, the more I have to use in the future. A processed thought loses some of the fat which is often most useful to chew on.

Circling back to my desired life of biblical documentation, the Book of Me, the Book of You, and so on. I have been really envious of the DADA cohort, and the Fluxus squad, and every other proper disparate artist collective.

A bunch of really cool people creating stuff around one another. All of them being their own people, with their own lives and goals, but crossing paths again and again. It creates a situation where each person in the group raises the other people in the group up. I think of Jonas Mekas filming Andy Warhol for some film award. Both famous artists in their own right, just shitposting. The question then comes in that situation, who is elevating whom? Or are they just existing around one another, sharing that the other exists? A shared appreciation.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t saddened not to have ‘my people’ around me. And yes, I do have some amazing people in my orbit, and I hope they understand the point I am making.

The thing is, I do not want this lack of reciprocity to cause me to do nothing. To not act, because others are not acting, means that nothing gets done. Why should, or would, I punish myself?

I think being open, existing how you are, is important. To add all these filters and addendums to basic sharing only muddies who you are and what you are saying.

Myth-making is not only inevitable, but also generative, responsible, and necessary.