Every culture has its mythos or stories of origin.
The Efik people of Nigeria, for instance, hold that God allowed a human couple to settle on the Earth but forbade them from working or reproducing that they might not grow in wisdom. Mugasa, the sky-god of the Bambuti in eastern Congo, had human children and dwelt among them in a paradise-like land until they angered him, causing him to forsake them. In the Pacific Northwest, a trickster god, named Yehl, created the earth and the sun and the moon before gifting mankind with fire. There’s the Jewish mythos of the God who created a garden paradise in which he took regular walks with a man and wife, enjoying the beauty of his creation. And of course, there’s our own culture’s origin story – a tale that tells of primordial ooze, the cradle of all life.
These stories – true or not – are our attempts to answer questions of purpose and existence. Why are we here? What are we here for? But cultural mythos don’t answer these questions (and can’t). All they tell us is that we’re here.
Right here.
Now.
The question that can be answered, however, is one of morality. How ought we to live? And in this, the fact that we’re here is the only answer we need.
Integrity, for instance, means being completely and consistently myself, wherever I am, whenever I’m there.
Simplicity means being satisfied with my situation – nothing less and nothing more.
Humility is being honest about who I am, about where I am. Pride is dangerous, then, because it denies weakness. False humility is destructive because it denies the self.
Finally, there is love. If I know myself – who I am and where I stand – then others provide no threat to my identity, and I am free to accept them as they are.
Whenever I find them. Wherever they are.
Humility is being honest about who I am, about where I am. Pride is dangerous, then, because it denies weakness. False humility is destructive because it denies the self.