Mythologize Your Life to Survive and Thrive in the AI Age

Changes in the structure of human society, mostly influenced by the Enlightenment period and the Industrial Revolution, led to the weakening and disappearance of collective myths. Some of the greatest minds of the last 200 years talked about how having a personal myth is necessary for anyone who wants to be an authentic, integrated, whole individual.

In the last few decades, human life became even more confusing and psychologically demanding due to rapid technological development. This exploded to new levels with the recent AI revolution. We now have more opportunities than ever, but we also face more uncertainty and distractions than at any point in human history. This is why having a personal myth is the highest urgency for the modern individual.

To mythologize your life is to start treating it as a story — because it is one. It is to recognize and make use of the fact that the story of your life has elements and patterns present in stories from various cultures and time periods.

To mythologize your life means to seek guidance not only from your intellect but also from your imagination. It means to become able to take fantasy seriously but not literally.

Our ancestors were in contact with the world of symbols. Most of our psychological problems stem from the fact that we are not. What happened? As almost always with humans — overcorrection.

The Age of Enlightenment contributed to humanity’s progress in many ways, like promoting religious tolerance and individual liberty. However, its overemphasis on the power of reason has left long-lasting consequences on our relationship with the irrational, symbolic side of human nature. We are still suffering from those consequences.

Carl Jung writes:

“Modern man does not understand how much his “rationalism” (which has destroyed his capacity to respond to numinous symbols and ideas) has put him at the mercy of the psychic “underworld.” He has freed himself from “superstition” (or so he believes), but in the process he has lost his spiritual values to a positively dangerous degree. His moral and spiritual tradition has disintegrated, and he is now paying the price for this breakup in worldwide disorientation and dissociation.”

While trying to free humanity from superstition and religious dogma, the Enlightenment ended up suppressing essential aspects of human life, that is, intuition, imagination, fantasy.

However, we must be careful not to make another overcorrection. The goal is not to devalue rationality. It is an essential capacity that helps us navigate the world. However, ignoring our irrational, symbolic, and spiritual side leaves us disoriented, disconnected, and psychologically vulnerable, as thinkers like Jung and May warned us.

Without the freedom facilitated by myth and symbols, one is “nothing but” an architect, an office worker, a parent, a director, or whatever limited horizon they adopted. And that narrow spiritual horizon leads, Jung claimed, to neurosis. Talking about his clients who had successful lives “on paper” but were suffering psychologically and spiritually, he said,

“They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success of money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities, the neurosis generally disappears.” (Memories, Dreams, Reflections)

By becoming more familiar with your inner images and intuitions, you will gain a more complete view of the mythology that already lives within you — mythology that has shaped you up to this point.

Task 1: Stories that Shaped You

Start by analyzing the stories that inspired, captivated, or moved you the most.
Take 5 minutes to list as many of them as you can. It doesn’t matter if it’s an ancient myth, classic literature, children’s book, or a modern fiction series. Everything counts.

Look at them, one by one, and ask, “Why?”
Why that story in particular?
Keep asking “Why?” and “What?” until you get answers that feel deeply personal.

Analyze at least 3 stories in this manner.

The most important rule to go into this exercise with: Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, is irrelevant. Write down everything that comes to your mind as you’re asking yourself these questions. It’s easy to skip less important statements later on. But the more you write down, the bigger the treasure house of your internal imagery

Now, it’s time to look at your story. To be more precise, you’ve been living numerous stories and narratives up to this point of your life. But what is your main, overarching story? Write a one-sentence summary of that story.

Moving forward, you will be encouraged to write much more about your story. However, there is value in starting with a short statement.