I did not know that I was living a myth, and even if I had known it, I would not have known what sort of myth was ordering my life without my knowledge. So, in the most natural way, I took it upon myself to get to know ‘my’ myth, and I regarded this as the task of tasks. . . . C.G. Jung, Foreword to the Fourth Swiss Edition of Symbols of Transformation, xxv.
A myth is a foundational set of beliefs that helps an individual in his/her life, or an entire nation found what moral order, what set of values they choose to adhere to, to defend. Joseph Campbell, Myths to Live By.
The stories we tell ourselves and others as well as those that are told to us can become reference points for our personal myth in narrative form. In recent years the battle over beliefs seems to have passed a boiling point: news shows, opinion pieces and other public and private forms of communication seem intent on showing us one position or another so we might be persuaded to believe it. How we choose or are persuaded to interpret an event, a set of facts, an opinion or belief will become our reality that we may then cling to for support and solid ground under us. Gripped with enough sustained force, what we believe can transform into a worldview, and further calcify into an ideology, not to be questioned.