The Origin Story

Sure. Why not? We’re using our imaginations anyway, right?

So begins… just about any superhero backstory.

And you’ll find similar set-ups in tales describing how powerful gods got their start…

...or how the planets or universe were formed…

…or how Bill Gates built his empire. It is human nature to question how the great

and powerful came to be.

Whether we’re dealing with fiction or otherwise. We call these tales “Origin stories,”

or “creation myths.”

These stories help explain where we came from…

…and maybe even where we’re going.

As individuals… or as a society. It’s a universal human trait to wonder abou[1][2]t

our origin…

…which is why we wish you good luck finding a culture anywhere in the world that hasn’t

taken a stab at it. Of course, people often have a tough time

taking the stories of other cultures seriously.

“Really? A god who shoots lightning bolts out of his hands? Whatever. I’ll just be

over here, believing the world was created on the back of a turtle, like any normal person.”

There are some pretty wild stories out there, it’s true…

…but some cultures treat them as metaphorical or symbolic representations of real-world

stuff.[3]

There may not literally be some guy who flies around in a diaper shooting arrows into the

buttocks of would-be lovers…

…but there seems to be some magic inherent in the idea of two people falling in love

with each other.

A character like Cupid is an attempt to explain that magic.

The creation story you’re probably most familiar with is the one detailed in Genesis…

…that points to a worldview in which human beings have a special relationship to one

God…

…and are given dominion over the world.

Although, if he was going to leave us in charge, it sure would have been nice if he had shown

us how to adjust the thermostat first. Then there’s the Greek creation myth…

…where the world is born out of chaos. That’s right… it used to be a big, fat Greek nothing.

But once the world was formed[4] and chaos was defeated, order and structure became really

important.

Which might explain why each Greek god has special dominion over a particular aspect

of life on Earth.

These guys were big on organization. You should have seen their sock drawers.

Some Native Americans [5]have their own origin story…

…about a guy diving into the ocean and finding the material he could use to build land.

Apparently, he didn’t trust his contractor.

Their story not only explains why land is surrounded by water…

…but suggests that Native American saw themselves as a culture constructed amidst a wide wilderness.

They’re like “this” with Mother Nature. And, as we mentioned, superheroes get their

own origin stories.

Would Bruce Wayne have been so committed to helping people if he hadn’t had such a tough

childhood?

You know… as tough as it can be when you live in a mansion and have your own butler?

There are many different ways to interpret these myths…

…but all of them are attempting to say something profound about the organization of the world…

…and the relationship between the world and the people who inhabit it.

Whether or not they like to put on masks in the evening hours and kick some bad guy butt.

[1]his is confusing because we could understand "our origin is universal" as the entire object

of "know," as in "the desire to know that our origin is universal" which is not what

you mean [2]

[3]I'm not sure that cultures treat their own myths as metaphorical, but rather that

we must think of them as such (and that there are actually symbolic kernels in all of them)

[4]Maybe add "And chaos was defeated" or something like that

Fun fact: Chaos was an actual guy, apparently [5]Some Native American groups (they're all

so different)