My Life as a Mythic Detective

My life as a Mythic detective started actually before I took think class, even though I didn’t really know that is what it was. Before I came to Montana I already over thought everything, I would actually make connections from just about everything to my life. Like watching a movie, or watching a TV show, listening to music, hearing a conversation as I walked by a couple people. Even if I only caught a few phrases I would relate that somehow to my life. Mythologies is sweet because I was given permission to look into everything with a keen eye and try to relate it to my life, try to find connections, and look for the origin of something. Or what lead up to this happening. How Mythology is the president behind every action, and how whatever is past, possess the present. This is great because tied with my Philosophy class there has been a lot of learning about myself and looking for core values and beliefs.

We recently started talking about personal identity, and if you can have personal identity over time. Since everything is always changing I don’t think that we are ever the same person, but every single thing that happens changes us as individuals. I love the idea that we never learn anything new, but we just have to remind ourselves about things we’ve forgotten. That actually has a lot to do with my life because my sophomore and junior years in high school I got a pair or gnarly concussions. So bad in fact that a few of my high school years have been lost to those blows to the head. I still have trouble remembering a lot of what would seem like simple things, like talking to people the day before and making plans, some days I would wake up and not even remember seeing them the previous day. So I am living the mythological way of learning, not new things, but things that I forgot and am being reminded of them.

After highschool I started having some pretty bad social anxiety, I don’t know where it came from or what happened, because I was always outgoing in school and loved to be with people and everybody at school knew who I was. This is not directly tying into Mythologies but my creation and initiation presentations were hurt greatly by what I was going through. I studied them a lot and had whole speeches planned out and perfected, but when I went in front of the class I freaked out and started saying things backwards and forgetting whole chunks of the story. Once I started linking mythologies to my life it actually helped because it made me feel like what I was going through happened to a lot of other people and it also gave me something else to think about, making better, and more positive connections to my life. One thing that is kind of funny I thought is that it seemed like most people in the class made connections to certain stories after they had read the Metamorphosis, but I think one of the things that made it hard to read was that I would come across a line in a story and it would fit so well with a memory of mine that I would go on thinking about that instead of actually paying closer attention to the story at hand. For instance, one line that caught my attention a few days ago is in the Death of Numa, and it says “What good are tears... for after all you are not the only one to find this misfortune..” This reminded me a lot about a story involving UFC fighter Nick Diaz and Spring break. 

I really enjoy watching UFC which is Mixed Martial Arts at its highest competition. George St. Pierre is my favorite fighter and he was fighting Nick Diaz the weekend of spring break, it was a really big deal and Diaz was really disrespecting George a lot. He did not show up for a pre fight press conference, and it pissed a lot of people off. I looked into him and found out that he has really bad social anxiety, and immediately there was a sort of connection, I follow St. Pierre a lot and I watch a lot of pre fight press and hype videos along with their interviews. I really don’t like Diaz at all, but it seemed like we kind of went through the same things. He without telling anybody and with no explanation didn’t show up for a huge press conference a few days before the fight. That is a very big deal, later I found out it was because of his anxiety, so I was not really mad at him anymore I kind of felt bad and knew what he felt because I also just skipped out on class the day of a presentation and I knew it was important I just couldn’t get myself to do it, I just stayed in my room all day and did not talk to anyone. I have been gradually getting over this ordeal, but when after this fight it really kick-started me to being more normal again. I watched good versus evil and good prevailed. As we all know you never talk bad to a god and tell him you are better than him and are going to kick their ass. George St. Pierre is as close to a god as you can get in the UFC and I watched him beat Nick Diaz’s butt for five rounds. After watching that and connecting to my issues and Mythologies connection, it really helped me get through it because it seemed like I was GSP and I was beating down on my little anxiety problem (Nick Diaz).

Going back to the beginning of the semester, I did not think I stood a chance in this class because everybody seemed so much smarter and seemed like they all had more experience in the english field and with literature. Which they did, and still do. The class seemed like it was going to be a struggle the whole year, but once we got our first assignment (post a picture hugging a tree) I was like ‘I can do this! haha’ and I did, I struggled a little bit, but soon I realized it was not about memorizing every single thing that was said and read. It’s more about learning and understanding how important mythology is and how it can connect to everybody’s life. At one point we learned that there is no such thing as an ordinary day (very true). There are no ordinary days, ordinary implies to me that it happens over and over again. But since everyday is different, everyday is extraordinary. I strongly believe that every single thing that happens to you will change your life at least slightly. Even if you just hear something subconsciously it will get into your brain and impact something down the road. Everyday and everything you will ever do is extraordinary, because no one can do it like you and it will ever be done again. Especially if you think of everyday and extraordinary or think about mythology, you will not only make it that way, but also learn a lot about yourself and become more in touch with the world.

Music has a ton of connections to everything under the moon, and even beyond, if you are aware that is. All you need to do is pay attention. The end is never truly the end, it is the beginning of something new. I’d really like to end on this section because it is very true. It is very cliché but when one door shuts another door opens. I wish I could realize this more because every time you finish any aspect of your life, a new adventure begins. I just started this semester here in Montana and the door in Seattle is not closed but this is definitely a new adventure. Just how Jennifer is graduating this May, this chapter is over for her, but the next one is unwritten and a canvas for anything she wants her life to become now. The artist Common said it best, “The end is never the end. A new challenge awaits. A test no man could be prepared for. A new hell he must conquer and destroy. A new level of growth he must confront himself.” The end is never the end, and the beginning is never truly the beginning.