A Disastrous Myth

Myths abound in our world and there seem to me to be a growing number of myths being promulgated in our society and government these days.  One kind of myth is a traditional story concerning the early history of a people or a tale explaining some natural or social phenomenon, which typically involves supernatural beings or events.  The story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible is a myth of this type.  The dividing of the Red Sea allowing the escaping Hebrew slaves to walk across on dry land is such a myth.  Such myths are not necessarily untruths (as often categorized) but are real stories, historical stories, factual stories, to which greater (often supernatural) meaning has been attached. 

Another form of myth is a person or thing having only an imaginary or unverifiable existence.  Examples abound in our American history and culture.  Superman is such a myth.  Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox and  Bigfoot  fit this category of myth.

There is also,  a third form of myth, defined as “a widely held but false belief or idea, an unfounded or false notion.”  An example of this kind of myth would be the American myth of individualism or the myth of racial superiority.  

There is a cultural myth that fits into this third definition that we have swallowed hook, line and sinker.  That cultural myth is the one that says, “If you are well adjusted, and if you are living your life properly, you will feel fulfilled, satisfied, content, and serene (happy).”  Conversely this myth says, “If you are not satisfied and fulfilled, there is something wrong with you (unhappy).”  Most of us accept this myth without question and it pervades every aspect of our society.  Popular religion promotes it by promising peace of mind if only we believe rightly.  If  we are not happy, this false religion says, it is because we are somehow not right with God.   Popular psychology promotes this myth, too.  This myth of fulfillment or myth of happiness is “a widely held but false belief…a false notion.”  At least I think so, especially since I have never felt total fulfillment and seldom if ever can I say I am “happy.”  So many settle for an anesthetized serenity or happiness which makes for dullness.  So many prefer a false fulfillment rather than dealing with the dis-ease of truth.  So many prefer a religion of comfort rather than the discomforting and radical message of the gospel of Jesus Christ. This myth of fulfillment and happiness, promulgated by every aspect of our culture, is the “opium of the people,” and dehumanizes us.

Our belief in this myth of fulfillment and/or happiness  and our attempts to make it real or true, causes us to miss the most beautiful and awesome aspect of our humanness—our yearning for a more authentic and meaningful love, our own incompleteness, our radical inner desire to be more than what we are.  We were never meant to be fulfilled, we are not made to be “happy!”  As Gerald May put it, “we were meant to taste it, to long for it, and to grow toward it.”