If ‘homo ludens’ is the being that plays, then it can be surmised that much of that play is taken up with the telling of tales, or the making of myths. As human beings, one of our major preoccupations is the invention of myths. It is perhaps our essential activity, that which defines us as human. When man first dipped his fingers in the mud and drew on the cave wall, that sign was meant to outlast the call of the voice, was meant to invent a myth that would continue beyond an echo.
Roland Barthes points out in Myth Today, “myth is a type of speech,” which certainly echoes the etymological sources. The word ‘myth’ finds its root in the Greek ‘muthos’, meaning speech or narrative. This can be traced back to the Indo-European root, ‘mud-’, to think, to imagine. How strange that the word is ‘mud’, with its suggestion of our mythical beginnings in fecund clay.
No matter what our approach to reality, no matter what concepts and words we use to contain the chaos of our world, we invent myth. We might call it materialism, religion, science, love, God, power or the absurd. Nonetheless, it is myth. It might be the myth we have chosen to believe. It remains, nonetheless, myth. And not necessarily a lie or an illusion, but perhaps a workable approach to the world. Myth, at its best, is our way of functioning, our means of bringing order to chaos. It is also our way of describing to ourselves what it is we are doing.