On My Interest in Mythology
In short, I have Rick Riordan to thank. For the longer story, I’d say his work is still very much the inciting factor, though I’m not sure where to start exactly. Well, it might help by mentioning that as a (younger) kid, I absolutely loved to read. I have boundless memories of the giant bookshelf in my sister and I’s playroom, filled entirely, books crammed into any of the few gaps that remained. I read a lot. So did she, but this isn’t about her. I read everything from stories our grandfather, Idries Shah, wrote, to classic Roald Dahl, to Harry Potter. Admittedly, though I still don’t know why, I read the Potter books in almost reverse, random chronology. As you could imagine, I was grateful when we got the box set of DVDs.
Anyway, sooner or later, and through a gift from a house guest, one more book joined the ranks upon those jam-packed shelves: Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. It was given to my sister, but it was I who actually stumbled into reading it. In doing so, I became engrossed in the epic adventure, with characters around my age, and all based on stories that had existed for millennia. I was hooked. My best friend at the time and I then began reading every book Riordan had written on the subject, becoming so competitive as to laud over the other the purchase of the latest in a series. I’m still a bit jealous. From that, I was brought into the world of not only the Ancient Greek myths, but Roman, Egyptian and Norse, too. I loved it all, and began finding as many relevant books on the subject and reading them, too. There has been a recent resurgence in contemporary retellings of these myths, but short of delving into the originals, there were far fewer options.
After a while, I started to understand mythology as a concept I could look into, study. It fascinated me to know that there were tangents between these weird, varied, fantastical stories that each engrossed me all the same. So as my interest in stories and writing developed, I looked to mythology for the reason they all persisted in the public consciousness, and in such high regard. Some vain part of me sought to give my work the same sort of immortality and high quality, and not knowing how, myths seemed as good a place to start as any.
Thankfully, I never found any one reason, at least not one that didn’t rely on centuries of complex sociological and complex shifts. I say thankfully, because I think it would have completely tarnished my work. It’s a parallel one can often draw to the theories in ethics – intention can make all the difference. So in lieu of having any good creative intentions, I focused on tossing out my bad ones and working from there. Unfortunately, I suffer from a lack of motivation, and so have had to start with a habit. Like, perhaps, a daily blog. I need to be able to find the passion in writing, a passion I felt through those endless hours reading mythology. Until I do find it again, knowing that the greatest stories have already been written is a weight off my shoulders.