Opening ‘Pandora’s Box’ – How Mythical References Pervade Our Language

November 9, 2017November 23, 2017 Gary ReinerLeave a comment

Pandora's Box
Pandora’s curiosity getting the best of her

Cultural & Linguistic Afterlife of Greek Myths

Classical mythology has had an extraordinary linguistic afterlife, giving it an unshakable presence in our common culture. In large part, this is because classical mythology proceeds from concrete stories rather than, as with philosophy, from abstract concepts. This is also why mythology can, even today, address everybody: inspiring children with as much fervor as adults, crossing not only social class and age but also traversing the generations – as it has done virtually without interruption for nearly three millennia.

Many everyday images, figures of speech, and expressions are directly borrowed from Greek mythology without our knowing their meaning or origin. These expressions often bear the memory trace of a mythical or fabulous episode, usually the crisis point in the adventures of a god or hero.

Some of the Many Common Phrases Based on Greek Mythology

to go off in search of the “Golden Fleece”
to “take the bull by the horns”
to “fall between Scylla and Charybdis”
to introduce a “Trojan horse” to our enemies
to have an “Achilles’ heel”
to feel nostalgia for a “golden age”
to look up at the “Milky Way”
to take part in the “Olympic” Games
to play a “Cassandra”
to sink into the “arms of Morpheus”
to be blessed – or cursed – with a “Midas touch”
to be endowed with “titanic” or “Herculean” strength
to stretch on a “Procrustean bed”
to embark on a “Promethean” undertaking
to open unwittingly a “Pandora’s box”
to have a “Oedipus complex”
to be a “narcissist”

The Wisdom of the Myths: How Greek Mythology Can Change Your Life
Luc Ferry

Background on Luc Ferry

Greek Mythology – Ancient Wisdom Alive & Well Today

November 1, 2017November 23, 2017 Gary ReinerLeave a comment

What is Classical Greek Myth?

Hundreds, if not thousands of books and articles have been devoted to pondering the status of Greek myth: Should it be classified under “tales and legends”, or filed under religion, or placed alongside literature and poetry, or perhaps on the same shelves as politics and sociology?

Greek myth is central to an entire civilization and polytheist religion, but is above all a philosophy in “story form”: a magnificent and concerted attempt to respond in secular form to the question of the good life by means of lessons in wisdom that breathe and live – are clothed in literature, in poetry and epic – rather than formulated in abstract argument. It is this essentially vernacular, poetic, and philosophical cast of Greek myth that accounts for its continuing vitality and involvement for us today – and what renders its singular and precious comparison with the legions of other myths, fairy tales, and legends that, from a strictly literary point of view, might seem to offer competition.

Source of Myths & When They Were Written

We need to remember that this or that “myth” is by no means the work of a single author. There is no original version, no canonical or sacred text comparable with the Bible or Koran, piously preserved through the ages, thereafter carrying authority. On the contrary, we are dealing with a plurality of stories and variants, written down by storytellers, philosophers, poets, and “mythographers” (those who assembled, collated, and edited the various compilations of myths from antiquity onward) over the course of twelve centuries or more: roughly from the seventh century BC to the fifth century AD – not to mention the various oral traditions, of which, by definition, we know comparatively little.

The Wisdom of the Myths: How Greek Mythology Can Change Your Life
Luc Ferry

Background on Luc Ferry

Look Around, Our World is Rich with Color – Or is It?

October 23, 2017 Gary ReinerLeave a comment

The Physical World Consists of Wavelengths in the Electromagnetic Spectrum

Light is composed of waves of magnetism along with electrical undulations traveling at right angles to it. Neither magnetism nor electricity have inherent color or brightness. Yet, when we look around, we seem to be embedded in a world of profound color and beauty.

People assumed, until the advent of quantum mechanics a century ago, that our eyes’ lenses were like clear glass windows that let us accurately perceive what is “out there” – and this remains a common view of the general public. However, we now know that what’s “out there” is no more than invisible magnetic and electrical fields.

Our Neural Circuitry Creates Colors and Patterns

Today’s physiology provides a clear picture of what we see “in front of us”. First, light enters the quarter-inch-wide lens of each eye, where an upside-down image is focused upon the two retinas. There – at least in bright light, since dim light employs different machinery – six million cone-shaped cells, which come in three varieties, each sensitive primarily to light’s primary colors of blue, red, or green – are stimulated only when they receive the impact of a specific range of energy wavelengths. Upon stimulation, they send electrical signals to an astounding universe of neurons designed to create three-dimensional images.

Visual Reality is Created in the Back of the Head

Most of the visual architecture lies at the back of the head, in the occipital lobe. There, over ten billion cells and one trillion synapses create the world we experience. It is there alone that visual reality occurs. This is where brightness and color are perceived.

The visual realm, with all its richness of color, along with brightness, detail, and three-dimensionality is created and perceived by us within the brain, the dark chamber locked in our skull.

Beyond Biocentrism: Rethinking Time, Space, Consciousness, and the Illusion of Death
Robet Lanza, MD with Bob Berman

Background on Robert Lanza and Bob Bermam

Forgiveness – Healing Our Past & Shaping Our Future

October 12, 2017 Gary ReinerLeave a comment

Forgiveness is a skill, a way of preserving clarity, sanity and generosity in an individual life, a beautiful way of shaping the mind to a future we want for ourselves; an admittance that if forgiveness comes through understanding, and if understanding is just a matter of time and application then we might as well begin forgiving right at the beginning of any drama rather than put ourselves through the full cycle of festering, incapacitation, reluctant healing and eventual blessing,

To forgive is to put oneself in a larger gravitational field of experience than the one that first seemed to hurt us. We reimagine ourselves in the light of our maturity and we reimagine the past in the light of our new identity, we allow ourselves to be gifted by a story larger than the story that first hurt us and left us bereft.

At the end of life, the wish to be forgiven is ultimately the chief desire of almost every human being. In refusing to wait; in extending forgiveness to others now, we begin the long journey of becoming the person who will be large enough, able enough and generous enough to receive, at the very end, that absolution ourselves.

Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words
David Whyte

Background on David Whyte

How is Goodness Key to Living Ethically?

October 10, 2017October 10, 2017 Gary ReinerLeave a comment

We can understand that no norms can tell us exactly what to do once we are out in the messy world, juggling myriad roles and emotions and scenarios. The only norm is goodness. For Confucius, cultivating and expressing goodness are the only ways to become an ethical person.

(Goodness means: moral excellence; virtue; kindness; generosity.)

The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
Michael Puett and Christine Gross-Loh