The Library of Found Things
An earnest disclaimer in the form of a narrative device!
[This is a placeholder article, lovingly left here in preparation of future Pop Mythologies giving people the false impression that I know what I’m talking about!]
Disclaimer: I am a biassed fool.
What sections - majority and minority - of society I belong to are my own and if you were to know, guess, surmise any of them and say that they have an effect on my outlook on the world then you would be utterly, completely and deliciously correct.
‘Pop Mythology’ is an exercise in subjective analysis, leaving objectivism at the large wooden door on the way in.
I am as biassed as I am human and as easily taken in by human error as the next person. I spell things wrong, release things out of time, forget to attribute and misattribute skills to almost everyone. I’m a fool, I can’t stress this enough.
I take a leaf out of the small cross-hatched books of the Existentialists and the great Daoist lyricist Edward Gorey in my belief that all art is ultimately left unfinished by its author. Finishing pieces of art is the role of the reader / admirer with questions like “What does it mean?” and “Shall I hang it on the wall in the living room or in the outhouse?”
If at the heart of most religions there are stories and all stories are an artform, then all religion is unfinished without interpretation and discussion.
Or so I reckon, anyway. Which brings us to …
The Library Of Found Things.
This Library is a strange library in that its visitors are given no map, there is no Dewey Decimal system and, worst of all, they unwillingly find themselves at the centre of its limitless labyrinth of sky-high bookshelves.
It is the unfortunate reader’s task to wander the aisles of featureless hardbacks for eternity in the hopes of, if not actually escaping, figuring out how to live within these halls of madness.
To do so, they depend on the strange occurrence of books pushed out of their places by unknown entities and often falling for thousands of years before landing at the feet of these wandering souls.
On the cover over each book is the word “Myth”, a catch-all term for stories that are undoubtedly entertaining but should also be treated with reverence.
After lots of umms, uuhs and I reckons the reader ‘finishes’ the story with their own interpretation and nudges the next person in the aisle and says, “What do you think?” and “How might this help us … y’know … get through it all?”
Such is the Library Of Found Things.
After The Labyrinth, Yet Another Disclaimer
I am not an expert, a theologian, or an enigmatic mystic. I have studied ancient history and mythology and folklore but I would never dream of declaring myself any more than a curious amateur at, well, anything.
I am a wayward wanderer, a flawed Flaneur stumbling his way through life and looking to the sacred stories of a thousand generations of humans who shared my hopes for understanding and, dare I say it, happiness.
If my interpretations offend then I can do no better than say it was not my intention, I try never to be careless with these treasures of wisdom but, instead, treat them with curiosity for the gifts they are. My palms are just sweaty, is all, and I fumble things a lot.
Address all complaints to my idiocy and please contribute your own thoughts, feelings and I reckons to the comment section. Conversation may be our only way out of this, after all!