Better Stories
Why humanity is ill-served by threadbare mythologies
For as far back as we have archeological records, and almost certainly long before then, we humans have worshipped imaginary magical creatures and imbued them with attributes conjured by our extremely limited imaginations. We have done this, and continue to do it, because our brains are far too limited to grapple with complex reality. As all brains of any size are essentially pattern-recognition machines, and as we therefore crave patterns, we humans have unconsciously supplied ourselves with simplistic patterns in an attempt to “explain” the workings of a reality far beyond our cognitive grasp.
Unfortunately, the imaginary magical pixies we have conjured up over the eons have always been extremely deficient and over the last few thousand years have become not merely deficient but also deeply toxic. The stories we tell ourselves are consequently not merely silly but perpetually harmful. This article will explain why.
When humans began conjuring up pixies to explain natural phenomenon and life events, it is probable that these imaginary entities multiplied rapidly. From records, and from the evidence of peoples living in simpler circumstances, we deduce that for many tens of thousands of years most humans alive saw invisible magical pixies everywhere. There were gods of the…
