The Wisdom of Myth and Poetry

First published on July 20, 2021

I first realised something might be going on with stories and the patterns in them about ten years ago. I was reflecting on the influence of watching interviews with Sir Alex Ferguson most weeks from the age of 9 or 10 until that point, noting particularly that his drive to move onto the next thing might be a part of why I didn't celebrate my successes. ('How long will you think about this title win before you move on to think about the next one, Sir Alex?' 'About five minutes.')

I started to reflect on what other things I had been exposed to repeatedly and at length throughout my life and, among other things, noted the patterns in the work of my favourite author, fantasy novelist David Gemmell. There was something to his stories: patterns that some people would call repetitive. And, indeed, they are. And yet that didn't matter to me, because something deeper was going on. There was something in the stories that touched me on a deeper level than simply the intellectual: moments of tragedy, humanity, courage and love that moved me and touched my soul. (So much so that I later created a website about Gemmell's work.)

Later still, I came across the Hero's Journey, Joseph Campbell's monomyth. It turns out that when Campbell investigated the stories that humans told, across cultures, really only one story emerged. Something about that story - the story of Beowulf, Luke Skywalker, Spider-Man, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins and more - touched humans so much that they recreated it again and again and again. And it has a power speaks to something deep. That is because really, the hero's journey is a story about all of us: a story about how we grow and transform, over and over, throughout our lives.

Later still, I came across the work of Jordan Peterson, the first act of whose life's work was to understand the maps of meaning that humans have created. His deep dive lecture series on Genesis, unpacking the stories told there and what they might mean to us as humans on a journey through our lives, has been watched millions of times. His two more accessible books (I haven't steeled myself for Maps of Meaning yet) are riddled with references to the deep wisdom of stories to tell us something about ourselves and our culture, from the Bible, to ancient Egyptian gods, to Harry Potter, Pinoccio and a seemingly innocuous children's story with incredible implications for all of our relationships, There's No Such Thing As A Dragon.

So, what on earth is going on here? Well, it's something like this: there are concepts that either too complex or too important or both to be left to chance, and humans have crafted these into stories to be passed down the generations. Perhaps stories were the only way we could pass collective wisdom on for much of our time on the planet. Certainly, they are an enduring method. These stories contain deep truths, so deep that they almost don't need explaining even though they often make no sense rationally.

I've heard some people describe this as things happening on the 'mythopoetic' level. In the same way that poetry can capture more complex ideas than prose (read this poem by me and then this article about the same thing, and see which you find more powerful), sometimes these legends and stories carry wisdom that we can just feel, and tell us truths that we would forget at our peril.

So remember these stories, and the words even, that capture far more than much of our rational, scientific language and thinking can. If you somehow feel more centred when encountering them, there's probably a reason for that: they are probably centring you on what is important, on what generations of humans have collected together into unforgettable stories. And if you feel like something is missing from the way you talk about meaning, purpose and your work and life, perhaps it is mythopoetic words, the ones that show up in those stories, that are missing. Love, heaven, God, honour, and more.

Beware the dismissal of the wisdom of generations.