That, anyway, is what I have learned.

                If there is only one thing I can take away from this class it is I new understanding of an old truth; endings and never fun. Many of us don’t enjoy the end of the book or of a story, the emptiness that consumes us when we turn the last page and read the final line. Myths are our way to try to continue the story; they give us a prolog for what happens after this world and they give us a history that makes the present a continuation of a past never ending. Even when a myth has a ending we find a way to keep it alive for us today, reinterpreting it to fit our daily lives in hopes that the story doesn’t have to end.

From the Bible to Arabian Nights, it feels like myths are a way to make every day part of the present. The past is one continues end, full of people we have forgotten, a club we will soon join. Every day of our lives will be forgotten in history, no one will remember our accomplishments. The greatest moments of our lives will inevitably fade into room temperature blandness, existence of the past in a constant reminder that we too will suffer their fate. Myth is the key to locking this horrible fate away from us. In myth we remember the past in all of its detail, we refuse to forget all the details of Heracles life, we immortalize his every accomplishment. This gives us the glimmer of a radiant future beyond this life for even if we are doomed to die, then we at least live on in the myths of all who hear them! The stories that should have ended long ago are ever alive today because of myth. Myth is the armor that stays off the cold pain of oblivion.

Myth is also our key to dodging the inevitable end of everything. While some might say that myth gives us an end when we don’t know there is one (it was only in myth that said the world and the entire universe would have an end rather than live on forever), myth only gives us a continuation after the ending. Many myths predict an end of times, a day when all life will end and everything will fade into nothingness, but they give us a hope that it won’t actually be the end. Myth often calls the end a ‘Revelation’ a tearing away of the vale. Myth has done what mankind has wanted to do since the very beginning of its existence, eliminate the end. Myth has made the end non-existent. Our myths have changed what used to be a frightful (and possibly painful) ending into something polar opposite, a brand new beginning. At the end of times there will be a ‘Revelation,’ a great new wave of truth that was hidden from us all along will be revealed and it will change us for the better.

Myth very well be mans greatest achievement, with it we have simultaneously eliminated the voiceless and empty past, and the dark dismal future. Myth has eradicated the past by making it ever present. We remember events long ago because of myth, and these stories shape our everyday life. At the same time myth has defeated the unknown future of room temperature, by making it radiant and full of life.  

That, any way is what I have learned.

But maybe, just maybe, I’m completely wrong about all of this. Maybe eliminating the end isn’t the greatest accomplishment of myth. Maybe it’s the question myth leads to that makes us gravitate towards myth. If myth is ‘the president behind every action,’ this leaves far more myth unknown than known. Could it be that when myth truly succeeds is when it leaves us wanting more? This what endings do, they leave us wanting more; we want to know what happens to Harry Potter as an adult, we want to know how Hazel Grace gets by, we want to know how Eragon trains new Dragon Riders, we want to know how Edmond Dantès spends the rest of his life. These ending leave us wanting more, but wanting more is what carries the story on and makes it a timeless tail.

Maybe this is why myth is so great. Maybe it’s because it fills us and leaves us wanting more, so much that we relentlessly pursue it and let it inspire us. Myth is just like the girl who leaves every night telling us that she’ll finish the story tomorrow. We are forced to let myth live because we want to hear how the story ends, we want a nice little bow that wraps everything up and yet at the exact same moment we don’t want it to end. We continue the myth so the story doesn’t have to end, when the story ends, so does the excitement and joy the story brings. When the story ends we are forced to go back to our dull and boring present. Maybe the goal of a good myth isn’t the destruction of an ending, but the perpetual promise of ending that will, allegedly, come if we continue with the story long enough.

This is why Dr. Sexton doesn’t open the gift from the mysterious neighbor, for as soon as the gift is opened, the story is over. The magical, life changing flight becomes just another flight with no significance or special meaning. Leaving the gift unwrapped perpetuates the story for as long as he wants, for as long as he needs it to go on. And this is what myth does for us it gives us something to hold on to and something to reach for. Our myths make the present less mundane and dreary; every day becomes exciting and wonderful because it is part of a story that doesn’t end.

So maybe myth brings about the destruction of endings, or maybe it forces us to look for one that is always out of reach, and maybe we’ll never know the difference. Whatever myth is it will forever capture us in its snare, make us its prisoner, and make us happy to stay there.

Endings are scary, they force us to move on from the present, abandon the past, and realize that there is no future. Myth beautifully embarrasses the end and makes it something mystifying, something to study, adore, fear, understand, and be perplexed by.

That, anyway, is what (I think) I’ve learned.