wikipedia trail: from Till We Have Faces to Analytical Psychology

#nofilter

Till We Have Faces
A novel by C. S. Lewis retelling the romance of Cupid and Psyche. The story is told from the perspective of Psyche’s logically-minded sister Orual, as “an accusation against the gods.” This may be where the novel’s original title, “Bareface,” came from, in the sense of Cupid’s invisibility, Orual’s deformed face and Psyche’s beauty, and possibly from what Orual perceives to be the gods’ “bare-faced lie.”

Cupid and Psyche
One of the most shamelessly romantic Greek stories may be an allegory. In the 5th century, Martianus Capella described the story as an allegory about “the fall of the human soul.” In The Golden Ass, Psyche receives immortality “as a reward for commitment to sexual love. To Martianus, Psyche is lured into the material world by sex, and becomes vulnerable to death: “Cupid takes Psyche from Virtue and shackles her,” in other words, sexual love takes the soul away from virtue.


Hieros Gamos
Greek for “holy marriage”, Hierogamy is a ritual that is supposed to represent a marriage between and god and goddess, with humans representing the husband and wife. It’s present not just in Greek mythology, where it was used to symbolically unify Zeus and Hera, but also in Hinduism where girls may marry their deity to show devotion, the Ancient Near East where Sumerian kings and high priestesses took part in the practice, and in Tantric Buddhism, where it is part of a ritual of a male deity and female consort. Sometimes mentioned in Jungian analytical psychology.

Analytical Psychology
Originating from the ideas of Carl Jung, analytical psychology is form of non-psychology that emphasizes the “personal quest for wholeness” of the individual psyche. Symbolism, archetypes, and the unconscious are important elements of analytical psychology. The ideas in Jungian psychology aren’t legitimate psychological ideas anymore, but can be used in literary analysis, among other things.

Image: The Abduction of Psyche by William-Adolphe Bouguereau. Web Source. 

growth mindset

I recognize Dweck’s spectrum of growth vs fixed mindsets in peers who breezed through grade school with natural talent and intelligence, and then hit stumbling blocks in college. In grade school, they didn’t have to work to get succeed, so it became natural to assume they would never have to. They never developed study habits or time management. College is different—even if you understand concepts upon first being introduced to them (which probably won’t happen), the sheer workload requires much more time and effort to get good grades. Students who were great in high school flounder in college. This is a generalization, but I’ve seen it happen, and I’ve been the student in question.

Instead of a desire to cultivate skills, there’s more a sense of “I found my limits, and I cannot change them.”

Except after 7 PM?

Everyone, I would bet, is keen on growing one or two sets of skills. I know I can always improve on writing. For my mom, it’s learning new computer skills. Several of my friends play and master new, challenging video games for fun. But on the reverse side, I think everyone has skills they’re insecure about and perceive as fixed in place. Despite twelve years of effort, I’m still terrible at reading sheet music.

So, I doubt it’s as cut-and-dry as a TED talk makes it sound, but the spectrum of growth vs fixed mindset is a useful model for comparison.





Image: Night speed sign by Litljltlj. Web source.

time strategies

Last semester was the most difficult semester of my college career. On top of an advertising internship, a job filling vending machines, and 15 hours of classes, my capstone course required an extra 15-20 hours a week. I could and did say, repeatedly and with confidence, that my schedule was busy. But now that’s in the bag, and I’m in the process of finishing my last semester, so something went right.

I must be really on top of things, I think to myself as I accidentally fall asleep for two hours in the middle of the day. So, yeah, I could always stand to improve.

This article from Book Launch, with the misleading title “The Myth of ‘Too Busy,’” is about time management and prioritizing. “Stop looking at your schedule and thinking 'I’m too busy.' Instead, look at your schedule and ask yourself, 'How am I prioritizing my time?'” My first thought is: does anyone actually look at their schedule and think “Wow, look at all this time I’m wasting. Here it is, right on my schedule. Look, I even blocked out watching 20 minutes of cat videos before getting out of bed in the morning!"

But it does make a good point. To prioritize your time, “you’ll have to say 'no' to a lot of time-wasting stuff.” Basically, don’t take on too much. That’s a lesson I keep having to relearn.

My to-do list has three categories: school, creative projects, and miscellaneous tasks. My strategy is to keep this list in front of my face as much as possible and get the topmost item finished whenever I have a moment to sit down. After that, I can goof off. I figure that a task is going to take a certain amount of time no matter what, be it an hour or 60 hours, so I might as well get it done before enough time has passed to stress about the deadline. For example, if I set aside two hours on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to work on this class, I can goof off on Thursday and Friday, probably.

Also, for college students especially: remember to set aside time for yourself to decompress. I try to keep a rule requiring me to stop working at 1 AM every night so I don’t hate myself in the morning. Gotta get those cat videos in sometime.

I feel your judgment.

Image: Grey Cat Stare, taken by Steve Hardy. Web Source.

reading options: brief impressions based on spider-women

For the assignment next week, and probably week three, I will most definitely be reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses. I like that it features many lesser known gods, goddesses, and mortals. I will be reading part two for sure—zeroed in on it when I saw that Persephone, Arachne, and Medea would be involved. I usually browse Theoi and see Ovid used as a source, so it will be interesting to see those passages in context.

Illustration of Arachne by Gustave Doré of 1861 edition of Dante's Inferno. Web source.

In weeks four and five, the collections of Egyptian myths and Sinbad’s travels caught my eye. Both these units are from new and different cultures I don’t know as much about as Greek stories, for example. I have also never read anything from 1001 nights. And I love seafaring stories and creation myths! Plus, they’re both collections, and two stories (or more) stories are better than one.

For weeks eleven and twelve, I can’t wait to dig into Celtic stories. I’m especially interested in Jenkyn Thomas’ The Welsh Fairy Book and Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene. Both these units look like they have many supernatural elements, which I enjoy. Haunted lakes, supernatural monsters, and Merlin sound like my speed.

storybook favorites: gnomes, wolves, and cannibals

Tales of Garden Creatures
This storybook’s topic is not familiar to me, and probably would not have attracted my attention if it weren’t for the introduction. Pekingese puppies? On top of being way too cute to resist, this ends up being a good technique with which to mix the three stories about pixies, trolls, and gnomes. Additionally, the blog’s introduction goes beyond setting up the story’s main characters and narrators, and introduces a conflict, which gives the reader to keep scrolling. Not many other introductions did this. The title vague, if apt, and could be more eye-catching.
The blog’s design is simple, but pleasing, with a pretty color palette and design elements. There aren’t enough design elements to make it busy, but what is there serves its purpose to draw or move the eye. The text is easily readable. Pictures are well-placed and have frames, which helps each page to look clean. I will also try to use frames in my own project.

Monster Hunter
Legendary monsters are a familiar topic, and I know about many different cultures’ stories of vampires, dragons, wolves, etc. This story doesn’t do anything novel with the creatures themselves. Instead, its appeal is the common narrator for each story that strings them together and provides a common voice—and a strong character’s voice—that makes the old stories fresh. The introduction is the strongest example of this voice. I’m not familiar with the specific stories this blog visits, but I would bet they don’t have the same impact without this character’s narration.
However, the design of this blog is not good. The text itself is hard to read because the background is busy and the font is rounded. These are mistakes I will make sure to avoid by keeping my blog design simple.

Man-Eaters
The introduction for this storybook, on top of being practically cinematic, aims to establish mood more than character, and does so to great effect. I’m familiar with a few legendary creatures who are also cannibals, but the creatures visited by this blog are unfamiliar. The title is particularly eye-catching: Man-Eaters: Lilith’s Lair of Lascivious Ladies.
My favorite story is the first, which is told through a series of blog posts narrating the main character’s descent into insanity and his eventual disappearance. It’s almost creepypasta-like, chilling, and much more effective for the topic than a conventional narrative style. Since the reader is reading what seems to be a relic of a supernatural event and can’t know everything that has happened, there is a real creep factor that matches the blog’s stories and theme.
The blog’s design is simple, and not unique to the blog’s story themes, but it works because it’s readable. It’s a good, dark theme. Also, that introduction image.

 She's coming to get you! Web source.

self-introduction

My name is Taylor. The most important thing you can know about me is that I have two plants that stubbornly stay alive despite my inability to put them in sunlight or water them on schedule: a sprig of lucky bamboo named Obsolescence, and an arrow head plant named The Abyss. I recommend naming plants after your fears and phobias so you can learn to nurture them. I will let you know if it works. 

I’m a senior Advertising major with a copywriting emphasis. Yeah, one of those people. Advertising professionals are, according to one of my professors, ranked as the almost the least-trusted people in the profession, above only car salesmen. People hate what I do, and I understand why. But I don’t hate advertising as a practice or an art form. In fact, I see advertising as a part of media and pop culture, and I’ve enjoyed studying the ethics and creative sides of it for the last three years.  

Advertising creatives are among the most talented and most quick-witted people I know of. Below are two examples, a couple of my favorite commercials:

Death Wish Coffee

Metro Trains Melbourne:

Here’s one thing I made. The assignment was to create a schedule for OU Basketball, so of course, I had to take the opportunity to make it Space Jam themed:

 

What I’m trying to say is that I maybe possibly haven’t sold my soul to the devil yet. Or I hope not, because I’m waiting for a better chance to do that. 

I’ve taken a ton of classes on writing, because it’s my favorite hobby and hopefully what I’ll do, in some form, as a profession. I love video games, tabletop games, listening to podcasts, writing fiction and nonfiction, watching movies, watching bad movies, watching YouTube, and cooking.

I have loved mythology ever since studying Latin in high school and learning about the maelstrom that is Greek mythology. There’s a special place in my heart for Greek mythology, Norse mythology, Roman history, and Japanese history, off the top of my head. 

I think mythology is so interesting because many legends follow modern storytelling conventions, but are part of a completely different cultural narrative, sometimes with outlandish values. You can learn a lot about a group of people by observing its mythology and how it intersects with its history and culture. 

Image: Design of OU Basketball schedule made by me, 2016

Videos: "Death Wish Coffee Company Big Game Commercial: Storm's a-Brewin'" on YouTube

"Dumb Ways to Die" on YouTube