At the beginning of this
last school year, like many of my peers, I was still contemplating the courses
I would eventually take during the course of my education at Montana
State. I had fulfilled a core here and
there, but had never sat down and made sure that every course was on track and
placed specifically into chosen semesters.
This year, though, I was required for ROTC to plan out the next three
years in the exact courses I would take for each semester. As some students in this class are probably
also aware of, this course fulfills MSU’s diversity core.
My
expectations of this class and what it has turned out to be, though, are stark
opposites. I had always wanted to take a
mythologies course, and believed them to be about just that, old myths or tales,
or stories. I even expected it from this
class. I believed before stepping into
this class that I would be learning stories from Greek mythology and then
regurgitating them for tests. Black and
white, cut and dry. I found, though, that
this class was more about my own life and the lives of every individual who has
been, is, and will be an inhabitant on our earth.
Our
book was deceiving. When I arrived at
the book store before the beginning of the semester to grab all of my
textbooks, I was relieved to find that it was only one book, but was still hesitant
after quickly flipping through it. All I
could think was here we go.
And
off we went. From the very first
lecture, I was hooked. When Dr. Sexton
said that it was a third grade level, I didn’t really believe him. In class, though, I felt like I was in third
grade all over again. This is my deep
secret that I keep from other professors.
In lectures during every other college class I am in, I listen and
scribble down notes as fast as I can, hoping that some of the information
sticks. I leave these classes discouraged and weary praying that the week goes
slowly in order for me to fit more monotonous study time in. In Mythologies, though, I sit in wide-eyed
wonder, soaking in every word. I
struggled at first, finding it hard to wrap my science-based mind around this
idea. It was a gray area, not the
straight answers I was used to receiving from my other teachers. But ideas slowly started to build.
At
first, when I thought about this assignment, I didn’t know what to do. I had learned to look for specifics, but I
didn’t want to talk only about examples for this paper’s entirety. If I did, I would just have to copy and paste
my blog into a Word document and hand it in.
For me, the big picture, and what I have learned as a mythic detective,
finally became clear this last weekend.
I started to go into this idea in my blog from Monday, but don’t believe
I fully explained my thoughts on the subject as well as I wanted.
This
last weekend, I noticed a trend, one that I constantly see in everyday life,
but was never sensitive to. Mistakes are
repeated over and over again. One early mistake
that stands out most vividly for me is from third or fourth grade. I could not spell the word because and
instead would spell it as “becouse.” I must have been correctly hundreds of
times. I would have to write it over and
over, but still I would be writing an essay question answer and the spelling
would be wrong again. To this day, my mom
will harass me about it. The funny thing
is that my dad has the same issue with spelling that I do. I would joke that it was genetics, and I
still think that it is to a degree. But
why, if my dad had these mistakes, didn’t I learn from them. Why couldn’t this tripping block be moved on from?
In
class, we talked on the first day of Myth being the precedent behind every
action. Everything has been done before,
nothing is original. We as humans like to believe that we are
different. We make fashion and behavior
statements to try and convince ourselves that we are our own individual. After this class, I don’t think that these tactics
work. We can’t be different through our
actions because somewhere along the line, someone has already done the same
thing we have. So many times, my parents
have told me that each generation becomes “worse and worse”, meaning that we
become more evil as time progresses.
Whether or not I can take Ovid’s work realistically, his stories paint a
vivid contradiction to that belief.
Humanity has not changed. Then I also
remember that Ovid received inspiration from elsewhere. His stories were passed down to him. Multiple times throughout class, it was
mentioned that Ovid was trying to outdo Homer.
This is just another example of an individual trying to become unique and
original, but in reality is just repeating exactly what has already been
done.
When
we started to talk about the parts of myth, I was still confused, enjoying the
learning process, but not completely grasping the concepts. I contributed it to my lack of experience in
the English classroom, but maybe it was my unwillingness to see what was right
in front of me. But like I said, this weekend something just
snapped into place. Where else had I
heard of a beginning, middle and end being pertinent? None other than in human’s
themselves. We are born, and go through
our own creation story. Each story is a
different variation, but it is all the same.
Each of us has a mother who carries us and gives birth to us after nine
months, give or take. After birth, we
grow and are shaped through childhood by our families or life. We
learn good and evil. Just as in the
stories Ovid tells for beginning, we learn when to speak and when to keep
quiet, as well as to not snoop into things we have no business being involved
in.
We have middle, a time period
of trial and error. In class it would
seem to be our initiation era. I believe the main initiation most
individuals experience is during our puberty years until we have passed into
adulthood. We like Arachnae learn when not to brag and who we shouldn’t
upset. We learn when to heed the advice
our parents give us. Not all of our
life stories are as heartbreaking during initiation as the characters in Ovid,
but each individual goes through some life changing moments.
Then there is our end. When we die, although we don’t know what
happens, we pass through a doorway and start a new adventure in the
unknown. It is a never ending
circle. It was the Ouroboros that
started my contemplation of the cycles that we go through in life as well as
the continuation of these cycles. I also
see it as the rings in trees. For me,
this is part of the significance of trees.
I know that in many Ovidian stories, trees were transformed people. But I also believe that they hold a secret in
the rings they have inside. They may
grow in years, but they continue to grow the same way every year. Complete circles make up the rings inside trees. I used to love counting the rings on large cottonwoods
that my dad would cut down at our place when we were younger. Even then, before this class, I knew there
was something special about trees. They
were much older than any human. I would
start counting the rings, but eventually give up because it took too long and I
would skip away, excepting that the tree was much older than I or my
parents. The funny thing about trees is
they are silent and they sometimes hunch over like a wise elder. You can whisper secrets in a tree and they,
unlike the wind, will keep the secret quiet.
They seem to have missed this cycle of having to relearn from past
mistakes.
I wish I had learned more
from the mistakes of others instead of having had to make them all myself. As I stood in formation this weekend and
watched a girl in charge of personnel accountability be yelled at in front of
our platoon, I saw two mistakes that we had learned not to do over the course
of the year. The first was to keep a
close eye on who was with you at all times and the other to always pull people
aside to reprimand them. I made mistake after mistake as well during our
training exercises, and every time I would want to hit my head at the simple
mistake that I had been taught multiple times to be careful about. I
hate failure, but there seems to be this cycle I can’t get out of. I learn more through failure, though, than I
do when just being taught something.
On the bus ride home when
a friend of mine asked me about Professor Sexton’s comment of mythologies are
everywhere and we just have to find them.
My mind started turning. I
finally came to a conclusion which I think is the main theme I have learned
from this class. The precedent has been
set, but that doesn’t mean we are immune to follies and mistakes that those
before us have made. It just means that
this is the life cycle that has been set for all humans to work their way
through by trial and error.
I have never been more
grateful for a class. I won’t forget it
and I will probably keep Ovid with me for a long time.
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