Just saw the new Harry Potter. Can I ask a question?

[leftyladyfrommo]

without pissing off everyone under 30?

Is it just me or are there a whole lot of young people who are just so caught up in imaginary worlds?
The werewolf and vampire thing is huge. And Harry Potter and all the sorcery. All these people who have access to supernatural powers and whole worlds of imaginary beings.

But its so far from reality. I worry. Spending so much time on electronic gadgets, computers and then spending so much time in the realm of the imaginary.

Is life so bad? or is this just a fun way to spend time?

[MadHound]

1. And thirty-forty years ago kids were all into Lord of the Rings,

X-Men, Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons, etc.

Seventy, eighty years ago people were all into King Kong, Wizard of Oz, Jules Verne, Lord Dunsany, etc.

Times and mediums change, but escapism remains the same.

[Motown_Johnny]

6. +1

well said


(but Jules Verne died 105 years ago, the 70-80 year range may be a bit off)

[MadHound]

11. Actually no,

There was a resurgence of interest in Verne during the twenties and thirties. There was a flurry of movie releases and book reprinting. My mom and uncles got caught up in it at the time, along with a bunch of other kids on the block.

[Motown_Johnny]

36. I stand corrected

[olegramps]

10. There is nothing new under the sun. I suggest reading Homer.

[Greybnk48]

2. Is Heaven real or imaginary? Lots of believers for this one.

Millions spend their lives ignoring the trials and tribulations of this world because of some imaginary existence they've been promised. Is that harmful in the same way? Flame away.

[gratuitous]

50. No shit! "Serve one another in love"

As if!

[nenagh]

3. Another viewpoint is that many children expanded their reading skills..

in order to read the Harry Potter series... :)

[Warpy]

4. When I was a feckless nerd teenager, it was "The Lord of the Rings"

and sci-fi. Then we discovered drugs.

Teenagers have always had a tough time and have needed escape. They're caught between bodies that are screaming it's time to breed and a culture that tells them they're still kids. They're stuck in high school two years longer than necessary if they're not interested in academics. They have to confront another 4 years in the hothouse environment of a college if they are. Being in that kind of a holding pattern when you really want to get out and establish your adult life sucks.

Add to that the wretched economy and dismal job prospects and I'm amazed it's "Harry Potter" and not heroin.

[demmiblue]

5. Most of what I read and watch for pleasure is fictional (i.e. imaginary).

Though I do love my social/cultural documentaries!

:shrug:

[Catshrink]

7. Last summer I got into the Ender Series.

I'm older than God - a good story is always a good escape. Do some kids get carried away with it? Maybe. I think the vampire thing is weird and sense that some kids take it "too far." But, as I said, I'm older than God so it could just be a perspective thing.

[fishwax]

8. being caught up in imaginary worlds is not a new phenomenon

It's been almost 40 years since the first Star Trek convention (1972), and I don't think it was really a new phenomenon then, either.

[MineralMan]

9. I spend (or misspent) my youth reading science fiction

novels. 50s and early 60s. I knew the difference between reality and fiction. So do today's kids.

[GOPNotForMe]

12. Chronicles of Narnia, Frankenstein, LOTR, Dracula...

Comic books, Roald Dahl books, Aesop's Fables. We have a long history of turning to imaginary worlds for various reasons.

[RandomThoughts]

13. Not sure about Harry Potter, unless it really is a comment about clay in the potters hands.

Since most everything is perception and imagination as a filter on what you see and hear.

For me there was no way to correct the issues within the context of reality as it is usually perceived, so those walls had to come down. Basically since the issues have not been explained as wrong, and nobody has explained why correction has not occurred, then the impossible becomes the logical coarse of action.

And once you set yourself on an impossible route, and it can be justified, then either reality changes, or your perception does, but it does not change that it should occur, nor should something being impossible change that.


There is an old saying, 2 + 2 sometimes equals 5.

Many laugh at that, but it is about sometimes, in somethings, there is an invisible one in the equation also. Although each should decide for themselves on that.

Hence also why I can still say, I only see 4 lights, but also think on possibilities of 5 also. Since I know that it is not what is seen that is what I perceive as added light, nor the thing that some want you to say that is.

Or

Sam: I wonder if we'll ever be put into songs or tales.
Frodo: What?
Sam: I wonder if people will ever say, 'Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring.' And they'll say 'Yes, that's one of my favorite stories. Frodo was really courageous, wasn't he, Dad?' 'Yes, my boy, the most famousest of hobbits. And that's saying a lot.'
Frodo: You've left out one of the chief characters - Samwise the Brave. I want to hear more about Sam.

Frodo: Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam.
Sam: Now Mr. Frodo, you shouldn't make fun; I was being serious.
Frodo: So was I.

Sam: Samwise the Brave...

[leftyladyfrommo]

17. OK You're probably right.

Imaginary stuff has always been popular.

When I was little it was Peter Pan. And Sky King and the Lone Ranger and Hoppalong Cassidy. I guess it was kind of the same thing - good versus evil. And the white hats always won.

I read mysteries.

[RandomThoughts]

24. And the good guys always started behind or had set backs.

And lost many battles on the way, till the black hats are defeated. (although black and white is not the best way to see it)


In other words there are groups that think some challenge shows who is right. They say if you win a battle that you were suppose to, by the fact you won, or were right by the fact you won.


That is because they see things as a single battle, and not the long term effects. Also part of the concept of life and afterlife also.

Also for perseverance to ever be of any value, how could the white hats always win? If determination and steadfast effort mattered, then how could the white hats win every battle? And in that the white hats win every battle even when some don't see it that way. besides without linear time, everyone has always been what they will become.


Your phrase requires a start and end of what is a battle, and even a definition of winning to have any meaning at all.

[RandomThoughts]

30. It might be stories, but even those have value you may not have thought about.

My favorite lines from Sam, that also fits the same concept.


"Then let us be rid of it,

Once and for all <- where have you heard that before...

I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you."


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pTUzTdPVgo



And many might not know how important any kind thought can be for someone in hardship, where ever they may be. So comfort for those in hardship means a alot, even if it is just a smile a beer, song, or story.

Do you understand what this is about. More then a trip to the Bahamas or a new car.

Celtic Woman - A New Journey - You Raise Me Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faKFcfytlxU



Although the opposites or hostage takers, see hope and kindness as a bad thing, do you understand why? Also why the opposites try to filter everything into looking bad, and try to create more hardship and despair.


(Side note, I am not in hardship, but was at one time. And I wasn't forgotten, its not about me.)

[The Straight Story]

14. I have 1200 books on my Nook, & I watch Netflix-It does not have to look like reality to reflect it

And I am 45. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, HP Lovecraft, Sci-Fi, etc are all entertaining and reflect things we face each day in just a more interesting way.

[leftyladyfrommo]

19. I read all of H.P. Lovecraft.

Scary stuff.

[Withywindle]

48. I have a love of Lovecraft too...

but the scariest thing in there by far? The racism. It's not visible in every story (and, not surprisingly, the works I like best of his are the ones where there's the least of it), but where it is, it's BAD. Product of his time, anti-social, etcetera. It's still there and it's still awful.


There's nothing like that in the popular fantasy/SF/horror works that kids are reading on a large scale today. Nor are any of the popular ones as nihilistic as Lovecraft.


Also - I don't mean to needle you, but you say you read mysteries. Do you really, seriously think that mysteries are less escapist and more realistic just because of the lack of supernatural elements? Do you really, seriously think that they reflect the way things work in the real world? Where the right "bad guy" almost always gets caught, and sleuths can break the rules and still get their man, and the truth is always known by the end of the book?

I like mysteries too, but I frankly don't see much difference between that kind of fantasy world and the kind with magic or vampires or hobbits in it. Both types of stories shine a light on our real world by creating one that's sort of similar but different in some fundamental way. It's possible to argue that the MORE fantastical elements, the more honest it is, because that is the storyteller pointing out, 'hello, FICTION, not real--but WHAT IF?"

I honestly think it's more likely that a mystery reader could confuse fantasy with reality, in the sense of thinking that, "Well, the smart detective must always be right because s/he is SMART, so of course we have the right person on Death Row because of his/her testimony," etc., because the various worlds various mystery writers create are so superficially similar to our own. However, a Harry Potter fan, on first attempt to cast "Accio TV remote" with a magic wand, would immediately learn it doesn't work that way here and now.

[cemaphonic]

61. Not even "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" ?

That's one of my favorites, and the whole thing is Lovecraft working out his visceral horror of miscegenation.

[Withywindle]

70. "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" remains my favorite.

I also love the cats of Ulthar, in any capacity where they may appear. :D


I KNOW he's working out his horror of miscegenation. It just creeps me out that he had it in the first place. The same themes are going on in The Dunwich Horror, for that matter.

[cemaphonic]

73. Yeah, Dream Quest is very neat.

And I like The Dunwich Horror too. OTOH, the stories I can think of where his racism is blatant instead of subtext (ReAnimator comes to mind) aren't that great. Though I suppose Call of Cthulhu has a fair bit of it, and I like it too.

[Dappleganger]

44. I could have written this post.

Fantasy helps reduce my stress exponentially.

[TorchTheWitch]

15. Superman, Wonder Woman, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty....

Bugs Bunny, Mickey Mouse, Alice in Wonderland, The Brothers Grimm, Beowulf, etc., etc., etc. Kids as well as adults have always been facinated by the imaginary and should be encouraged to expand their creativity. It's that imagination and creativity that has spawned pretty much everything that made us a modern people.

The only thing I see as a problem is so much of peoples' creativity is spent sitting down barely moving.

[leftyladyfrommo]

18. Spending hours and hours in front of a box.

Does it make any difference if it's TV or if it's a computer?

At least the computer is interactive.

[TorchTheWitch]

32. are you sitting on your ass barely moving?

That should answer that question.

[Individualist]

28. H. G. Wells, Jules Verne

[TorchTheWitch]

34. the list goes back to the dawn of man

when people sat around fires and listened to story tellers spin facinating yarns of the imagination that spurred the creativity to tame a horse and use it to travel farther and faster or to pull and carry loads, to build permanent dwellings in the shape and size and where they wanted them, to ride on water, to corral animals and breed them for food, to shape useful tools... were it not for imagination and the creativity it spawns we'd still be sitting in caves and wandering after our food. Every advancement of man started as a crazy imaginary dream.

I can't believe I forgot Jules Verne!!!

[KoKo]

47. The "Brothers Grimm" were incredible Tutorials for what we'd Face...but Early and not

read so much today...but today's groups are influenced by GRIM...and others. All literture builds on itself. I'm glad to see the Games (not the sex violence gratuitous...but the others) sort of building on earlier works.

BUT...if you lose the "moralty parables...how it's wrong to do bad against your neighbor, because it could come home to you when "you are in need" then the whole thing falls apart. Separating the "Common GOOD...with some sense of "Kindness Code" for Fellow Human Beings with Gratuitous Violence or Exploitation for just WINNING is something that might be worrisome.

Vampires are COOL! Matt Taibbi did that to good effect when he called Banking Giant and FOOB (Friend of Obama) a "Giant Vampire Squid that Sticks it Blood Funnel into American Economy."

VAMPIRES are USERS AND BLOOD SUCKERS...but they are sooooo attractive, beguiling and charming and so prone to attacking innocents that it fits into "sexually hyperactive society, Wall Street Greed (rape of Pensioners and 401-K Investors + our whole Economy and Truth in Banking and Mortgage Lending)...that the Vampires as Sexual Seductives of our Children is a new Grizzly Fairy Tale that alerts folks to what's out there...just as the old parables and children's storries and Fairy Tales, Epic Heroic Tales from our past did.

Maybe the stuff today isn't as erudite in language our expresion and some seems prurient or commercialized...but IT IS WHAT WE ARE DEALING WITH! To get to people today...one has to get to the "non-readers" and those who use socialized media and different ways of communicating.

So...what you are seeing is new generations finding their way to find a way to deal with "Common Good" and "Moral Hazard" in a world where Religion seems so corrupted that new people coming up see no value...and when their Job Prospects and Futher seem to be falling down before their eyes and their future seems so fraught with difficulty.... Then...in those times we all seek to find expressions for what we are seeing and feeling and looking for "COMMON GUIDES to BEHAVIOR" ...as opposed to RELIGIOUS.

So....Myth and Mysticism and Science Fiction are ways that express that for those of us who will be SEEKING "new truths" or even just basic ways to find a way to navigate through what we are living through and just basically "cope and keep one's sanity and a COMPASS" that holds one true when SOCIETY IS FALLING APART! SOCIETY IS FALLING APART!

EVEN THE "GPS" is not "A COMPASS."

[lumberjack_jeff]

16. Back in my day we had solid, fact based entertainment.

Like Star Trek.

[csziggy]

68. And "My Mother the Car" n/t

[Brickbat]

20. Kids thinking about imaginary things and supernatural powers? OH NOES!

Not a whole lot of concern, here, sorry. Fantasy worlds can help children and teens deal with all sorts of issues, or just be a source of pleasure.

[MineralMan]

21. Here are some pertinent comments about young people:

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for
authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place
of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their
households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They
contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties
at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers."

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to SOCRATES by Plato

[antigone382]

54. I love this quote.

I might just save it and respond to every single "these kids today" youth bashing post that comes up.

(I don't really consider this post one of them, btw)

[MilesColtrane]

22. They like reading which may mean that they are intelligent and...

paying attention to what is going on this country.

I can't remember the prospects of a future as bleak as the one teens are facing right now.

Who wouldn't want to escape?

[FailureToCommunicate]

23. You answered your question. It's both. No different for the Boomers...

Our kids really got into Harry Potter and we all read them aloud or listened to the fantastic Jim Dale books-on-tape versions!
We knew we would try to help them become avid readers, but HP really gave that a boost. (The books, not the films)


(BTW- it's more correct to say "MAY I ask a question")
(Sorry, can't help it)

[tanyev]

25. All movies are imaginary unless you only watch documentaries.

I'll take Harry Potter over the latest Tom Cruise ego fest any day.

[Speck Tater]

26. When I was a kid back in the 1950's it was Peter Pan, swashbuckling pirates, Davy Crockett

Tom Corbet Space Cadet, Rocky Jones Space Ranger, etc. etc., and we kids of the 50's were just as ga-ga over our imaginary heroes as kids today are over theirs.

The only thing that has really changed is that when we played Buck Rogers we did it by running around outside with capes and plastic rays guns from a cereal box instead of by sitting at a computer or TV screen. The obsession is the same only the manner of expression has changed.

[Withywindle]

42. Kids still do play that way.

They play Harry Potter and Star Wars with sticks--well, when they're allowed to have any time together outside without adults watching to cramp their style, that is.

[Romulox]

27. Another thing--the fantasy world is 24/7 nonstop.

The responses that mention LOTR somewhat miss the point--when I was a kid cartoons meant an hour or two on Saturday morning. Nowadays, the cartoons are on several channels, 24 hours a day.

[Withywindle]

41. Ah, but books are also 24/7 nonstop.

At least they were when I was a kid. We were the kind of family where we all had our own books at the dinner table. :D

[liberalmuse]

29. You got a lot of people over 30 stuck in an imaginary existence...

filled with both fictional real characters attributed with superpowers. It's called 'religion'.

[Fla_Democrat]

31. I would answer you, but

I'm late for a guild raid on the Lich King.

:evilgrin:





:smoke:

[Bluenorthwest]

33. I'm around 50 and here are some books from my youth:

A Wrinkle In Time, Chronicles of Narnia, the Hobbit, James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Borowers, The Gnomobile,...
And here is the thing. I knew then as I know now that while the language is that of imaginary worlds, all of those stories are actually about our own world, the 'real one' and in that regard, Harry and his friends do an admirable job of truth telling. The young people who have grown up on those stories have taken from them some really wonderful things, true things. A world of imagination creates a safe place and a safe distance from 'reality' which allows for the discussion of truth, real truth, about 'reality'. Not only children, but also adults benefit from making up worlds that are not 'real' which serve as simulacrums of our own.
The purpose of Harry Potter is to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature.

[dionysus]

51. dude, roald dahl books rock. did you ever read The BFG?

[Hansel]

35. People of every age get caught up in imaginery worlds

Cartoons have been around as long as I can remember and now people of all ages are watching them (Family Guy, Homer Simpson, Phineas and Ferb). SyFy, romance novels, vampire TV shows and movies, fairy tales, and modern mythological novels are all about imaginary worlds. And continue to be huge sellers to all age groups. I went to see Harry Potter and the average age group in the theater was in the 40s with few young people attending. And that was the matinee.

People need to be able to unwind from the stresses of life. Using imagination is not only a effective way of doing this, in most cases it is a very healthy way.

I'm in my mid 50s and not young by any means. I love the creativity of the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings series. Also loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. It's a fun way to spend time with very little impact on any other part of my life. Phineas and Ferb is a shrine to the imaginary world and creativity, and I know many more adults who watch it than children.

Imaginary worlds have existed through the millenniums. Egyptian, Greek, Roman and, dare I say, Christian mythology are all based on imaginary worlds. People are continuously escaping through religion and mythology. For many it is healthy. Unfortunately others go too overboard with it and it ends in tragedy. Lords of the Rings is actually based in religious mythology. Mythology that as existed throughout the ages is now on the big screens is all.

It's a fun way to spend time. And it's no different than it has been throughout the centuries. I think the American culture has tried to stifle creativity and looked upon those who are more creative as inferior and hard to control noncomformers. The fact that epic mythology shines through so greatly on the big screen, despite every effort to squelch those who create it, is a testament to it's importance in our lives and a great thing.

[BanzaiBonnie]

37. I began reading sci fi when I was ten years old

I began even earlier with ALL the fairy tales. The world of the imagination is the realm from which new ideas are born and old ideas shared.

[Withywindle]

38. There's one point that I think has only been made indirectly

Which is that 'Harry Potter' and 'Twilight' were both ginormous pop-cultural phenomena AS BOOKS years before the first movies came out. HP in particular had big midnight-release parties and all that AS BOOKS in the 90s, whereas the first movie didn't come out til 2001.

So those phenomena, at least, seem to me to not be the same thing at all as the gadgetry fixation--rather opposite, actually . They're old-fashioned (literally; they're both in long-running and well-established genres) paper-and-ink books first and foremost, and the kids eat 'em up with a spoon.

There have also been a lot of articles written in the 90s and 00s about how Harry Potter is almost as popular with adults as with kids. Probably because they're structured in a way very similar to mysteries: there is always an enigma to be figured out, the stakes are life and death and the cast of characters is huge, and as you get later in the series, you find lots of things related to "minor details" or "throwaway lines" in the earlier books, so they do reward close and repeated readings. There's also a LOT of social satire--some of which is probably lost on Americans since it's so very British, but we can still get the gist.

At 41, I think I'm too old for Twilight (melodramatic teen romance is not my thing anymore), but definitely not for Harry Potter.

[GSLevel9]

39. btw, FANTASTIC movie... easily the best so far. nt

[southernyankeebelle]

40. Well if they are let them be because the real world is pretty screwed up

[Xenotime]

43. Some people feel depressed that the fantasy world doesn't exist

Some contemplate killing themselves.

[AndrewP]

45. It's just a movie that a lot of people enjoy.

I don't get into any of that fantasy stuff personally, but I think every generation has it. When I was a brat there were Superman and Star Wars movies.

[WolverineDG]

46. Oh yeah, cuz those of us over 30 were never caught up in imaginary worlds

Star Trek
Star Wars
E.T.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Superman (with Christopher Reeve)

Sabrina the Teenage Witch (on Archie's Funhouse)
Legion of the Superheroes

And in the 50s, those over 30 were wondering the same thing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wCXr_6wgns

dg

[dionysus]

49. maybe you never heard of tolkein and ray bradbury.

:rofl:

[Odin2005]

Oh fuck, another "kids these days" post.

Yes, imagination is so horrible! :eyes:

[Warren DeMontague]

72. I think children are ruined if they play with anything more interesting than rocks and railroad ties

Really, when we took them off the engine lathes, that's when things started to go downhill.

[BzaDem]

52. In other words... "GET OFF MY LAWN"

[MrSlayer]

53. Hell, I'm still caught up in my imaginary worlds. The Forgotten Realms being the most prominent.

I'd much rather live there than here.

Is life so bad? Yeah, that's why people need the amount of diversion they do. Without the absolute freedom that wealth brings, you have to look for whatever escape you can.

[Codeine]

57. Elminster sends his love.

But Drizzt can suck it.

[MrSlayer]

67. Watch it there buddy.

Drizzt is my man or, more appropriately, my Drow. Entreri and Jarlaxle are my favorites above all though.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

55. You Should Be Glad Kids Actually WANT To Read Again

I couldn't care less what the books are actually about. Anybody who's able to make kids start to read books again is all right with me. Speaking as one of the very few avid readers out there, I'm happy to see reading making a comeback. I secretly believe that it's not so much the subject matter of these books that troubles the right-wing religious wackos as it is the fact that children are actually reading. Because reading is the first step towards education, and education is the first step toward free thinking, and free thinking is the first step toward abandoning superstition, which scares right-wingers AND religious wackos to death.

And by the way, I'm nearing 40 years old, and I've read all the Harry Potter books. The first ones I didn't like so much, but they get better and better as the series goes on. I haven't seen the new movie yet, but I plan to see it soon.

[Codeine]

56. When I was a kid it was Dungeons and Dragons

and The Silmarillion. :shrug: People dig fantasy.

[Odin2005]

58. Imaginary worlds? I make up my own imaginary LANGUAGES!!!

Here are a couple of my projects:

http://wiki.frath.net/Alpic
http://wiki.frath.net/Plitnakya

And a descendant of English:

http://wiki.frath.net/Solaric

[AngryAmish]

59. I suggest the you never find out about World of Warcraft

You might clutch those pearls right off your neck.

[XemaSab]

60. I think being into reading is healthy, regardless of the subject matter

Never getting outside is very worrisome. :(

FWIW, I read "Order of the Phoenix" sitting under a giant doug fir in the Klamath Range in Oregon, I read "Half-blood Prince" sitting on a trail about 10 miles outside Yosemite, and I read "Deathly Hallows" at the Santa Barbara Botanic Gardens and Rocky Nook Park in Santa Barbara.

Nature + Harry Potter FTW. :D

[AsahinaKimi]

62. My happiest times were

When my friends and I played Role playing games. Sitting around for hours with each other, making up tales, being characters without a script. Defeating the bad guys, and coming back from our adventures with riches, rewards, and more magic. I could have lived in those worlds forever.

Today even for me, I love IMVU. I even spent Thanksgiving with my IMVU friends!

[Honeycombe8]

63. These sorts of stories have been popular for centuries.

Fairy tales are pretty gory and full of supernatural things. Fairy tales date back many centuries.

Then there was Disney...Fantasia, Dumbo, Snow White (an old fairy tale), Cinderella - all full of supernatural powers (elephants that fly, fairies that sprinkles colors of magic on people to make them sleep for 100 years).

Then there was the rash of hugely popular horror movies in the 40's....The Wolfman, Dracula (Bela Lagosi), Frankenstein. All filled with non-human, supernatural events and creatures.

I am in my 50's. I've loved horror movies and certain kinds of fantasy movies ever since I can remember. I could explain why to you, but if you loved that sort of thing, you'd already know.

I think you're concerned because it's basically not your thing. It's not a worry. People love this stuff now, always have, and always will.

There IS one point I would make to you, besides just loving the fantasy of it all: As a movie buff, I've learned over the years that during times of crisis and economic downturns, people go more to escapist types of movies. It takes them away from their worries for a couple of hours. (The wolfman, dracula, Frankenstein movies were popular during WWII, for example.)

Musicals and other types of escapist movies are also popular in times of economic depression.

No need to worry. It's just entertaining, is all. (BTW, it's not only those under 30 who watch these movies, as you seem to believe. As I said, I'm in my 50's and have seen 3 Harry Potter movies. You can also group Star Wars and Iron Man and Spiderman and Superman into this supernatural, escapist, movie genre. Lots of people over 30 have seen those movies.)

[The Gunslinger]

64. Star Wars was kinda popular in the 70's 80's

[Manifestor_of_Light]

65. Read Joseph Campbell.

Joseph Campbell was an expert on mythology. He wrote THE HERO WITH A THOUSAND FACES. It explains the archetypes and characters in the Hero's Quest. That's the basic plot of most stories of growing up through the centuries.

Very fundamentally important stuff to understanding why these same tales are retold with every generation - fighting of good against evil.

[ZombieHorde]

66. You are describing religion as well. nt

[RegieRocker]

69. How do you know this is real?

Maybe your brain is in a lexan box filled with fluid and fed nutrients and chemicals to keep it alive and everything you think is real is fed to you by computer.

[Warren DeMontague]

71. Oh, for fuuuuuuuuuuuuck's sake.