Third Reality of Man Ch 6: Who Mourns Adonis?

The myths and legends concerning deities, the Gods and Goddesses, have been part of the human condition for a very, very long time.  Upon rational inspection these stories, be they fossil remembrances of actual events or simply projections of imagination, are quite often found to be where a people and a culture store the accumulated wisdom of their lives.  The richer mythologies, such as the Greco-Roman or Indian pantheons, clearly reflect these peoples understandings: of themselves, of their times, of humanity in general.  Some deity comes to represent a common trait of humanity, that element of the human condition then set to motivate mythological flesh as a dominant personality trait while some other trait is represented by say that deity’s sister or cousin or consort, the story of the relationships and motivations for those relationship between the two that carry down the generations as legend give the host culture’s understanding of the associated interpersonal dynamics, ultimately the social dynamics,  commonly found along the interface between the traits. 

Even in this age of exponential advancement in the sciences and technology these entities are still power players on the stage of human affairs.  How is it these entities, ancient as they are, still command such power?  From a functional perspective obviously these entities must still provide some needed service to still have value within the lives of those who offer them their fealty.  For all that science can now explain the mechanics of human life with an appreciable degree of fidelity it is obvious science cannot even fully duplicate the true functionality of these entities much less surpass them or they would not remain the powers they are.  To rational observation it is apparent there must be things these entities provide which science simply cannot. 

What do these deities of antiquity provide to humanity that assures their continuance?  What do they provide that science cannot?  A deep question, a very deep question, and yet the answer is not so very hard when the simple minded arrogance of fact  is set aside: they provide a needed service in places where science does not, because it truly cannot, operate: the realms of ethical choice and aesthetic opinion, the issues of self definition and self judgment that exist exclusively within the inner first reality of each individual’s self perception.  The Gods and Goddesses, the realms of the supernatural, exist and persist on the value of a vocabulary pertinent to the most absolutely intimate of things, the matters of heart and soul from which are derived the motives and ambitions, the dreams and the nightmares that power the totality of a life regardless of where or when that life might be lived.

I will assert these thought structures built upon perceptions of the supernatural, evolved and inherited as they are, are evidence of mankind’s oldest involvement with collective entities and those entities’ place in the human condition.  Examined from the perspective of an ongoing effort at self definition all of human history easily becomes  a testament to the effect of some collective entity expanding out of the inner first reality of the host individuals to become a consolidated force vector impacting the common second reality where originates the history of the race.

From antiquity the works of mankind have all, each and every one, shared one trait in common: they ultimately originate from someone’s desire to make the second, external, reality match some specific element of their internal first reality.   Perhaps little commented on, but true.  Any and every change mankind has with deliberation introduced into the environment of life began with a precipitating vision that at some point existed nowhere save in the inner first reality of some one individual’s imagination.  (appended 6/8/15... this thought belongs here, not later)

In all of my wanderings across the landscape of the human I’ve not found a more powerful phenomenon than the one just mentioned: the expansion into the second (common) reality of a collective entity originally evolved to serve the needs of its’ hosts individual and private inner reality.  The story of these migrations across that first and most primal of frontiers is the story of the human race, a full understanding of the motives involved, the alliances formed between the various collectives both inner and outer, the running river of blood and mortality for both host and collective is the story of the human race.  Oh yes, a collective entity can die, it can be killed, the collective entities know war just as do the individuals.

Convoluted and contradictory as the answer might be the question must be asked: what motivates, what could possibly motivate, these migrations whence originate so very many of humanities miseries?  This thought will be continued, and expanded, in the forthcoming chapter “Dancing All Around Me Hat…”

Oh, and just as an IMO footnote?  Who Mourns Adonis?   That’s easy.  He’s mourned by every lesbian lass who from time to time desperately wishes she had his truly divine  beauty to inspire her and give her permission to reach out with her heart open to the other half of the world.

...to be continued...