I. The Pressure of Return
There comes a point after long immersion in objectivity
where the subjective returns—not as fantasy or whimsy, but as pressure. After
years of studying science, I re-entered the world of fiction and feeling, and
it unsettled me more than I expected. I had developed tools of measurement,
logic, and control, and now I was stepping back into a space where symbols
moved without explanation. The cost of this return felt steep—like risking all
the structure I had spent years building.
And yet, it was necessary. Myth, I came to realize, was not
a regression but a frame for understanding what cannot be measured directly. It
is structure—not chaos—that allows the inner world to echo without breaking
apart. And this structure, when understood rightly, does not compete with
reason. It complements it.
II. Myth as Tensional Architecture
Myth is often misunderstood as escape, but its deepest
function is containment—containing tension, contradiction, and transformation.
What I’ve come to see is that myth holds contradiction open just long enough
for resonance to form. It doesn’t rush to resolve polarity but gives space for
opposites to coexist meaningfully.
Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey offers a pattern: the call
to adventure, the ordeal, and the return. Carl Jung points to archetypes
surfacing from the collective unconscious that require recognition and
integration. Eliade reminds us that myth restores sacred time, allowing the
eternal to brush against the mundane. In all of these, myth is not a story for
amusement—it is an architectural form for psychic weather.
Imagine a cathedral: not built to resolve sound but to shape
its reverberation. Myth functions the same way. It doesn’t dissolve tension—it
arranges it.
III. Resonance: What Tension Produces
In physics, resonance arises when systems vibrate at shared
frequencies. Psychologically, the same principle seems to apply: we feel
resonance when external symbols and internal structures align. But resonance
isn’t peaceful—it’s full of subtle dissonance and harmony. It’s a sign that
something dynamic is happening.
At times, this shows up in small breakdowns—forgetting
words, switching phrases, feeling your mental structure blur. That blur isn’t
failure. It’s retuning. The subjective isn’t malfunctioning; it’s resonating.
These moments mark the movement of deeper architecture. The echoes that myth
allows are not meant to remain still. They shift, reform, and restabilize.
IV. The Anchor: The Dualist Self
To contain resonance without being consumed by it, there
must be an anchor. This, for me, is the dualist self: the tensioned space
between the objective and the subjective. It is not a self of singular
identity, but a self formed in relationship—a balance between materiality and
meaning.
Dualism, as I experience it, is not philosophical debate. It
is lived interface. One foot in the symbolic, one in the actual. One hand
grasping the eternal, the other turning off the stove. Without this dual
position, myth can unmoor, and objectivity can calcify.
The dualist self becomes the resonance boundary—the membrane
that keeps symbolic energy from overwhelming physical form. It allows the
mythic to echo without breaking the mind, and the measurable to remain open to
interpretation.
V. Modern Collapse and the Need for Myth
In a world stripped of myth, we feel dissonance with nowhere
to place it. Symbols become noise. Mental health fractures under the pressure
of unstructured meaning. Technology reflects everything and contains nothing.
We are asked to be objective in a world without grounding
myth, or subjective without grounding structure. Either direction untethered
leads to collapse. We need myth again—not as superstition but as a resonant
form, a scaffolding for meaning under pressure.
Returning to my writing—my blog—is one way I build this
structure. A shelter doesn't remove
tension, but makes it lived in. I write not just for myself, but as a shelter to
examine for others. How will we know what works, if we don’t share our
processes?
VI. Living the Echo
Myth isn’t about answers. It’s about depth. When I write,
I’m not escaping objectivity—I’m extending it into its symbolic counterpart.
The subjective becomes navigable when it's housed in form. I don’t want to
dissolve into meaninglessness or calcify into fact. I want to resonate.
And for that, I need myth.
My blog, my thinking, my story—they are echoes I choose to
live with. Not perfectly tuned, not resolved, but vibrating with enough
integrity to carry forward.
I built my myth not to escape the world, but to feel its
weight more honestly.
A Mythic Question to Close
Imagine a figure walking a bridge made of sound. Each
footstep echoes into the distance, yet no end appears. One side of the bridge
holds the world they know—measurable, named. The other is a mist that sings but
cannot be touched. They carry a tuning fork in their hand, but no map.
What do they use to choose their next step?