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The best of the best myths, urban or social myths, have been given a rigorous going-over. I think we've all heard these urban legends throughout our lives and the kind of fun to talk about.
First we grew out of the old folk myths that our parents used as forms of domestic control: we realized that eating watermelon seeds would not grow a whole fruit in our bellies, that crossing our eyes would not make our eyes stick that way, and, sadly, we learned there was no Santa Claus, no Tooth Fairy, no Easter Bunny, no dead man with a hook for an arm…. and who can forget that mom and dad always had to walk 5 miles in the snow to get to school... uphill both ways.
Do remember the one about Pop rocks and cola? As it went if you put a bunch of proper action your math and chased it down with some soda, it would explode. That's one of my all-time favorites. Or what about the one about Bubble Yum bubble gum?
Whenever you put it into a piece of Bubble Yum it had a bit of a crunch to it. That was due to the fact that it was loaded with sugar. But as one of the best of the best myths, the story had it at the con actually contained spiders eggs and that's where the crunching came from. I love that one.
As Munich freelance writer Klaus Manhart reiterates in his article, “Likely Story,” in Scientific American Mind, humans need myths. The “brain needs a story…” he writes, and the brain needs, once the story is told, to be able to “explain the unexplainable,” [as Manhart notes Joseph Campbell discovered] to follow through on its imperative to “impose order on the world.”
Maybe he's right in his theory about why we need myths, we are also called to our accountability when it comes to potentially damaging myths. I guess that makes us feel smart when we figure them out. Enter the inquisitive and curious John Stossel, 20/20’s challenging reporter, to deconstruct the media-driven myths of 2005.
As reported by LBN (Late Breaking News), John Stossel took it upon himself to de-mystify his version of the best of the best of myths--numbers one through ten as follows:
Number 10: Americans have less free time than we used to.
Number 9. Money buys happiness.
Number 8: Republicans shrink government.
Number 7: The world is getting too crowded.
Number 6. Chemicals are killing us.
Number 5: Guns are bad.
Number 4: We're drowning in garbage.
Number 3: We're destroying our forests.
Number 2: Getting cold will give you a cold.
Number 1: Life is getting worse.
Now granted, minds such as those belonging to Manhart, Stossel, really have an overriding drive to have their world makes sense to them, to have and to find an explanation for the apparently unexplainable. But do we really need to figure everything out, in faith, in nihilistic determination and malcontented spite? There's nothing wrong with a little mystery and our lives is there?
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