Discussion about this post

User's avatar
Al P's avatar

Great article. I think that religion, while in some ways outdated, is actually very archetypal at its core and is a key reason why religious stories resonate across time.

For example, the religious images you mentioned as being "difficult to understand" are indeed difficult to understand if one looks at them through a modern lens. But the reason they are so iconic and stand the test of time is because they speak to something hidden beneath the shallow and short lived level of thinking many are immersed in.

For example, the story of the Christ is simply a retelling of the story of Horus in ancient Egypt. In fact, Christianity can be thought of as a continuation of the teachings of ancient Egyptian mystery schools - with the "Father" being Osiris, the "Holy Spirit" being Isis and the "Son" as Horus.

The Tower of Babel, another famous story from the Bible, can be seen as an archetypal story. This same story is found in many cultures across the world which were not known to have any contact with each other (Native Americans for example have their own "Tower of Babel" story). This suggests it's archetypal in nature. Interestingly, you can find this archetype depicted in the Tarot as the card "The Tower".

Jurassic Park is a modern story that exemplifies this archetype well. A billionaire attempting to bypass nature by bringing back an extinct species only to inevitable be met with "the thunderbolts from above" - aka complete disaster.

Of course, Jurassic Park is something that will likely exist in the "Long Now" - something that people will enjoy generations from now.

In my opinion, it's not because of the dinosaurs. It's because it exemplifies this archetype just as the Tower of Babel also exemplifies this archetype.

Expand full comment
skybrian's avatar

The Long Now perspective is interesting, but another way to cope might be to accept that what we write is for us, not the model of a future historian living in your head. The future will have its own concerns, and very likely a lot more data than we have about our past. Maybe our writing will be interesting because it’s *not* timeless, but rather of its time?

Expand full comment
4 more comments...

No posts