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May 2002
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May 20
In his book The Stories We Live By, Dan McAdams explores the
importance of personal myth (a personal narrative or story) in our lives.
This personal narrative, I believe, is what gives us a sense of self.
Our myth must remain transparent, permeable, and open to change as we
encounter and assimilate new experiences in life. If it does not remain
open, the myth that gives us life becomes the prison that threatens spiritual
death. The constant revision of our personal myth is the essence of the
Heroic Journey in life. Here are two excerpts from McAdams' book on the
importance and place of a personal mythology.
- To make meaning in life is to create dynamic narratives that render
sensible and coherent the seeming chaos of human existence. To fail
in this effort of mythmaking is to experience the malaise and stagnation
that come with an insufficient narration of human life. Meaning and
malaise may be viewed from many different standpoints on the personal
myth, such as the quality of imagery, the nature of themes, the characteristics
of imagoes, and the viability of the ideological setting that situates
the myth in an ethical and religious context. ...the most mature and
psychologically viable personal myths display coherence, openness,
credibility, differentiation, reconciliation, and generative integration.
(p. 166)
- What does living the myth do for you? What does it do for society?
From the standpoint of the individual's psychology, to live the myth
is to provide your life with meaning -- more so than with happiness.
This is not to say that a personal myth exists to make you unhappy.
Rather, it suggests that a personal myth functions first and foremost
to provide life with meaning, unity, purpose. Happiness may follow,
but in some cases it may not. From the standpoint of society, to live
the myth is to connect to the grand narratives of your social world.
Myths are created and lived in a social context. As a social participant,
you are responsible for creating and living a personal myth in such
a way as to commit your life to the generative agenda of human kind.
Without this commitment, identy loses any trace of social responsibility
and degenerates into trivia or narcissism. (p. 265)
May 27
The Austrian psychologist, Ludwig Binswanger has shown that the reverse
is true as well. We can only understand something or someone for whom we
care. In this sense of how we come to know a human being, the words of Goethe
are especially valid: �One learns to know only what one loves, and the deeper
and fuller the knowledge is to be, the more powerful and vivid must be the
love, indeed the passion.�
- Max VanManen
Researching Lived Experience: Human science for an action sensitive
pedagogy
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