The Good Myth

Six developmental trends may be identified as a standard or a criterion against which we may compare a particular personal myth. Over the course of adolescence through middle adulthood, a personal myths should ideally develop in the direction of increasing (1) coherence, (2)  openness, (3) credibility, (4) differentiation, (5) reconciliation, and (6) generative integration. The prototype of the “good story” in human identity is one that receives high marks on these six narrative standards.  

Dan McAdams, The Stories We Live By

Four kinds of self-stories

Ontology is the study of being. Therefore, an ontology of the self is a person's account of how he or she came to be. Hankiss finds that young adults 10 to use four different kinds of “strategies” in constructing their ontologies of self: the dynastic (a good past gives birth to a good present), the antithetical (a bad past gives birth to a good present),the compensatory ( a good past gives birth to a bad present), and the self-absolutory (a bad past gives birth to a bad present).

Dan McAdams, The Stories We Live By

I don’t know who I am anymore

In order to know who I am, I must also know who I am not. The point of departure in personal myth-making is the dawning realization that I am not what I was. I am not a child anymore. The adolescent takes leave of the frameworks and certainties of the past and searches for new answers to new questions in life. Certain authority figures are made into negative identities. At the time they are created, they personify what an individual doesn't want to become.  They are the first villains and fools in the adolescent's new story. While there are villains, there are also kings and queens.

In world mythologies, the young hero frequently receives critical help from Weis benefactors— sages, goddesses, and supernatural aides.  Without their help, the hero's journey is probably doomed. We should not be misled, therefore, into thinking that mythmaking is a solitary quest. There are indeed dangerous to face, and risks that we all must take, and take alone. But the adolescent’s search for identity is initiated and played out in a social context. We come to know who we are through relationships and in social settings. To depart from the past is not to Leave the world behind. It is rather to move from one world to another. 

Dan McAdams, The Stories We Live By

tell me a story

We naturally avoid ambiguity. We want black and white, right or left, up or down. The greys of life are so distasteful that when a cause is attached to any set of facts, we assume the "facts" are more likely to have really happened.

Nassim Taleb in his book The Black Swain points out that if you ask someone, "How many people are likely to have lung cancer in the U.S.?" you might get a response like "half a million." But if you make one change to the question and ask, "How many people are likely to have lung cancer in the U.S. because of smoking cigarettes" you would get a much higher number. Why is that? Taleb suggests we tend to believe an idea is more likely to be true when a cause is attached to it.

Joey seemed happily married but killed his wife.

Joey seemed happily married but killed his wife to get her inheritance. 

The first is broader and accommodate more possibilities. The second statement is more specific and less likely to be true.  But if you ask people which is more likely, more of them would say the second statement. Why?  The second statement tells us a story.

The narrative misguides us. We want an explanation, a back story. That's why it’s hard for us to look at a series of facts without weaving an explanation into them and tying the factsto the because. We like a good story-even when it misleads us about what is true. That's why you should be careful whenever you come across a because. Connecting causes to particular events must be handled with care.

Stephen Goforth

Tech history is poorly documented and poorly understood

It’s often near impossible to know why certain technologies flourished, or what happened to the ones that didn’t. While we’re still early enough in the computing revolution that many of its pioneers are still alive and working to create technology today, it’s common to find that tech history as recent as a few years ago has already been erased. Why did your favorite app succeed when others didn’t? What failed attempts were made to create such apps before? What problems did those apps encounter — or what problems did they cause? Which creators or innovators got erased from the stories when we created the myths around today’s biggest tech titans?

All of those questions get glossed over, silenced, or sometimes deliberately answered incorrectly, in favor of building a story of sleek, seamless, inevitable progress in the tech world. Now, that’s hardly unique to technology — nearly every industry can point to similar issues. But that ahistorical view of the tech world can have serious consequences when today’s tech creators are unable to learn from those who came before them, even if they want to.

Anil Dash writing in Medium