FREUD

I've never been to a psychiatrist but if I ever try it I'll be sure the doctor is a bonafide, old-school Freudian. I want to take Freud's inward journey into the fantastic realm of the unconscious. I want to see the arid plains and pounding surf of the Romantic 19th Century mind. I want to experience the storm-swept oceans and terrifying Minotaur caves that Freud believed fed into our emotions.

 Forget all the pills and advice that psychologists dispense nowadays. They're meant to help you cope, to help you function. But who cares about function? I want adventure.

I want access to the myths Freud says my mind has created for me. If my mind tells me that I'm a kind of Odysseus facing monsters then I want to see those monsters. If my mind is constantly cranking out stories to make sense of the world, then I want to know what those stories are.

I want to develop a gut feeling about what the mysteries of life really are. I want to run through Daliesque landscapes.

Before I leave I have to tell you how this desire to know what's in my mind came about. It goes back to the time my daughter was a young teenager and was reluctant to cut my hair. One day it dawned on me that she didn't want to touch my hair because she unconsciously believed that if you touch an older person you become old yourself. Of course that's not true, but it struck me that I believed that myself when I was a kid. Maybe all kids believe it. Maybe it sticks with us even when we become adults and know better.

Lots of us have beliefs that defy common sense. I don't believe in ghosts yet I wouldn't want to spend a night in a haunted house. I can't help wondering how many of these contradictory beliefs I entertain. I assume I have all the common contradictory beliefs...the belief in good and bad luck, etc., but I'm at peace with that. What gives me pause is the thought that maybe MOST of my beliefs fall into this category.  Maybe a large number of the important decisions I make every week are influenced by the mythology I developed as a kid.

If that's true then I'd like to know what that mythology is. I'd like to know what kind of world I've constructed for myself.

COURSERA'S COURSE ON GREEK MYTHOLOGY (REVISED)

N C Wyeth did a good job on the Odyssey. I wonder why none of the translations I've seen use these pictures?

These are oil paintings, approximately 4' X 3'.

Anyway, what I really want to talk about is Coursera's currently offered course in Greek and Roman Mythology.

For those who are unfamiliar with it, a word about Coursera....

Coursera provides free college-level courses on the internet. You can audit the courses by simply watching the videos, or you can participate at a higher level by reading the assigned texts, taking tests, writing papers graded mostly by peers, and participating in class discussion on the net.

The only fee is optional...if you pass the course you might want to pay $30 or so for a certificate verifying that fact. Selected courses are accepted for full credit by over 2,000 American colleges. You can drop out at any time and the drop won't be held against you. Records are only kept on courses the student has successfully completed. And it's all free, did I mention that?

I know what you're thinking, that no internet course can compete with live teaching. My answer to that is...well, of course not. There's obviously no substitute for live give and take and for the role model offered by a gifted teacher. This is for people who can't do that, or who want to audit a difficult course like calculus before taking it again for credit in a live class.



My family (minus me) is taking Peter Struck's 10 week course on Greek and Roman mythology right now, and they're loving it. This morning they were telling me about the way different critics interpreted the The Odyssey through the ages. A classical Greek critic interpreted it as an allegory of the way the gods work on us through different parts and artifacts of the body like bile or the spleen. Hume thought the book was nonsense and ought to be forgotten. Heine (the 19th Century romantic) thought the story was a door into what would later be called the subconscious. Fascinating!

Here's (below) the reading list for the class.

I didn't take the course because only Homer and Virgil and possibly Hesiod really interest me, but Struck looks like a good teacher and it might have been fun to see what he had to say about the others.



There's an introduction to English Common Law course coming up that I have my eye on. It's an odd subject for a cartoonist to take, and I have no intention of ever being a lawyer, but I love the parts I've read of Blackstone's commentaries, and I'm curious to know more. Besides, if the class doesn't keep my interest I can drop it, with no penalty.

BTW: Struck is using the Fagles translation of The Odyssey, which he defended on a video. Some of the students pushed for the newer Lombardo version. See what you think...

 

MY PERSONAL MYTHOLOGY

"I have often had the fancy that there is some one myth for every man, which, if we but knew it, would make us understand all he did and thought."  William Butler Yeats  I heartily concur. I think all of us have a personal mythology that guides our lives. I'm not talking about religion or a thought-out philosophy. I'm talking about a strong, almost unconscious intuition about life and how we fit in to it. Maybe it's a fragment of a story that explains things for us, and it's different for every person. I thought it might be fun to try to articulate some of these suppressed stories, and see what they look like when dressed and cleaned up. My own myth is that I'm Odysseus and the forces I meet in the world are represented by colossal monsters and beautiful sirens. My intuition tells me that the world is a beautiful but menacing place and that there are people who would kill me if they could, not for any rational reason, but because they're driven by forces they don't understand any more than I do. I also believe that the world is full of Siren-like temptations that, if I gave in to them, would fatally weaken me. A personal myth often seems silly when you put it into words, and mine is no exception. When given articulation it seems more passive than I'd like it to be, as if I'm doomed only to react to things and never to heroically prevail. On the other hand, maybe those negatives testify to the authenticity of the story. Maybe it comes from some common primal depth where survival is the ultimate value and where we all feel dumb panic and awe at the grand and magical nature of the world. Maybe, I'm not sure. At parties and restaurants over the years I've heard other personal myths that are different than mine. Many years ago a guy told me that he saw himself as a soldier ant who had to keep the other ants in line. I overheard a girl say that the love of friends is the ultimate value, no matter what sacrifices are called for. Last but not least...I don't personally know anyone who buys into this myth, but I know that it's out there because of biographies I've read...is the myth that kill or be killed is the rule. Mess up others before they mess you up. That sounds pretty harsh, but in the hands of someone who believes in reason and kindness it can produce someone with the necessary toughness to succeed. Interesting, huh?