Myth

Î was witness at the marriage of my best friend. She got married for the second time to the same man ( I'll spare you the details).

Listening to the speeches of the major and afterwards the mother in law and having heard my friend innumerable times on the topic I started wondering about myths and how they are created ( for what I heard at the wedding was far from reality).

A myth is created when you single out elements of a story and leave out others so that it conforms to an archetypical story. If you work the myth well and with consistency, the myth will be remembered for generations- it can even end up in the history book. Most celebrities nowadays have professionals working on the creation of their myth.

Archetypical stories are a bit like fairy-tales: the washer that became a millionaire, the poor that had a special gift that was singled out, the guy who wins against all odds because he's true, the finally found real love.

Myths are written over time in looking back and the perspective then often goes beyond the life-cycle: looking back at the life of...., or ...happy ever after. Any continuation of life risks not to fall in the picture and thus destroy the whole myth. Like my aunt, condemned by cancer told me one month before she died- it is better to leave the scene, when everybody has good memories about you- meaning: when you have the chance to leave a myth behind.

But not only celebrities care about their myths, all of us do. Brain-science found that our memory of an event is rewritten entirely every time we think about it- we are continuously rewriting our own myths. If you don't believe me, listen to a family story of your grandmother and of your grand aunt- chances are that they have very different versions of the very same event- unless...... unless they regularly have rewritten the story together in the collective memory at every family gathering- do you remember when.....?