sábado, abril 05, 2008

The Labyrinth of Myths

Have you ever built up a small scenery inside a carton box so that when you look from outside, you can display whatever you wanted to recreate from a different perspective?

I sometimes did so in the school in my young days, cutting small pieces of paper, shaping them as chairs, desks, houses, people, with some coloured papers and finally after placing it all inside the small box, I did add some light.

And then, after the scene has been set up -like a small movie scene-, from a small hole in the box, I used to look inside and when you do, it does look like a small mini world has been created.

You can see your scene from the first until the bottom line of the box, and see how line after line your composition recreates a living story or event. Some of them are very nicely done with interior lights and it gives a very unique eye impression and delight.

Now take a piece of apple and put it in the center of a paper-boxed made labyrinth, just as one scenery described before, but much simpler.

Imagine at first that the labytinth has only one single entrance. If you then add a small group of ants on the same entrance, you will soon find out that a few of them start exploring around and the rest will follow them.

The result, even in the worse case, will be that they will all find the piece of apple, more or less in a similar time, because ants leave some smell whenever they pass through, so that others can follow them. You can observe this not only in this experiment, but commonly anywhere ants are, they make a line and follow all the group.

Give it a second try, add different entrances to the labyrinth, and one ant in each entrance. If every of them starts exploring around, some of them will pass several times for the same place, some lucky ants will find the piece of apple quickly while the rest of the group will be wondering around until they find the right way.


In this second try there will be local communication, but since every information transmitted to others is just partial, to find the piece of apple becomes more complicated, since any ant knows where the other has been.

Give it a third try, add not only one piece of apple, but several fruit pieces, several entrances and several ants on each entrance. Welcome to the chaos!


Some ants will get the piece of fruit, some others will not even know there is fruit in the labyrinth, and some will be lucky enough as to find not only one, but several pieces.

This experiment may, in a way, reflect how humans are. Replace ants for humans, fruits for wishes and the paper labyrinth for a world environment.

You will find out that we are all born in different locations, influenced by different cultures and people, and therefore our wishlist may be also different. Looking for an apple may turn into a quest, moving everywhere anytime. And so in our life, we walk around, see new things, change our wishes and priorities as we explore and live inside this huge labyrinth.

When I was seven or eight years old, I remember there was a contest in a computer magazine. I already forgot what could I win by filling in and sending certain survey to an office post box somewhere in Spain. But I remember clearly it was a contest for adults, even it didn't mention that children couldn't apply for it. So I did.

So I started filling in my personal data, name, address, and suddenly I had to stop in one field in the middle of the page, which was "current employment". Of course I was not working at that time, so I left the field blank for a while and I completed the survey. Then before I decided to cut the paper and send it by mail, I asked my mother what should I fill in the survery for "employment".


Her reply was like, "well, you dont have a job now, so you can feel free to write down there what you want to be in the future". I kept looking at her and went back to my desk to complete such a difficult task: think what I wanted to be in the future.

Such a nice reply from a mother to her son, which was followed by mine, after I have it some thoughts... what I wrote was, literally:

"Current Employment: 'I want to be a normal man.'"

Obviously, I had no idea what I wanted to be yet, I never saw myself at that time as with some ability to work and be paid for my work. Paid? What do I use the money for? I don't need a house nor a car, I am just a kid!

I can't help laughing when I imagine how the people in that company opened my envelope and found that an eight years old kid who wanted to be a normal man sent that survey to them in order to win something!!

Anyway, this answer has, indeed, some interesting points which I can recall now after so many years.


Firstly, normal man at that time to me meant have a regular life. Have a job -whatever-, have a house, a family. Just be like all the adult people around me were.
Which means, I was an ant already following what other ants were doing, or at least, I was conscious of what "others" were doing, from a very far distance.

Secondly, and I think this is quite common, most teenagers dream of a perfect life. A perfect life for me was to graduate early, get stability on work when I was 25, save money till 28 or 29, and get married around 30's. Build up a family before 35's, and live happily and peacefully for the rest of my life.


This was my master plan at that time, the apple I wanted to look for when I realized I was inside the labyrinth.

However as walking around, going through various steps, exchanging information with other ants that I found on my way, I realized that these dreams are not accomplished at the time I wanted to, and so the piece of apple I originally wanted is now spreaded in small pieces across the labyrinth that have to be found as time goes by.

How many of us have ever dreamt to have a peaceful life, or at least ordered life, and realize later on that only part of our dreams have become true? I suppose more than 90% of worldwide population? :-P . It is not that we don't fight for it, but that the challenge keeps going on depending on our environment and opportunities.

Dreams may change, knowledge, actions and chances may be different depending on where are we at the current time and what we have learnt so far from our experience and so we keep walking in the labytinth inside the same carton box, sometimes we pass through the same corner with different goals.

Myths may not always happen at a time we originally planned for, they may fade away or come back with a stronger wish for us to succeed. Time, place and environment will always affect our choices and way of life.

But yet we always look for a perfect life in the best way we can. The completion of happiness in life is not an easy task and there will be often pieces to be found in our quest. Which is at the same time not bad, as it pushes us to keep trying for what we long for.


A spanish proverb states: "Caminante no hay camino, se hace camino al andar".

Its english translation would be like "There is no path to follow, we do the path as we walk".


This proverb has a lot to say and discuss, I do not know whether its true or not, but I think life is a combination of both, a labyrinth in which we are trapped looking for our dreams to come true as we do effort for them, and also, at the same time, an undiscovered path that will describe our life in a unique way.

That's the magic of myths to be followed, the quest of trying to succeed, and the nice feeling of spontaneusly, which can turn over our thoughts anytime.

Human instinct is unpredictible, and therefore, as long as there are myths in the labyrinth to follow, there we are, trapped and looking for our own quests to be accomplished.


Just like ants do.