Ye Olde Tablets

    Honestly, the statement "there is no permanence" by Utnapishtim is largely unproblematic with my view of the world. The fact that humans have limited lives before being cast into the infinite has had no issue for countless humans in our history, and I believe that the reason for that is simply the opposite fact that death gives living life meaning. For those who believe in an afterlife, our existence on earth is all we have to prove ourselves before judgment. For those who don't believe in an afterlife, our existence is all we have, and so we must cherish every second of it, making the best of it.     The religious, specifically those who believe in eternal life after death, don't actually believe that the eternity would be the "life" we know on earth. They believe that it would be a permanence outside of time and the dimensions, a unity with a higher power that is existence itself. The one way to get around Utnapishtim's statement on "there is ...

       All of these stories have two things in common. They all follow the hero's journey as illustrated by Joseph Campbell when he first cam up with the theory, and they all have a male protagonist. The hero lives in his ordinary life with a semblance of comfort, and problems arise or peak. The hero then is drawn into the unknown through an inciting incident, beginning his trials. The trials slowly grow until reaching a climactic point of conflict. From thereafter the problem is resolved and the hero returns to society or a place of comfort with newfound knowledge, acquisitions or skills (or an amalgamation of multiple).     This formula is followed in Beowulf , The Odyssey , The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , Star War s, Indiana Jones , Lord of the Rings , and many, many more. It is the formula that can be rinsed and repeated with nobody having any problem with it, particularly because it is so flexible. Can anyone say that the stories listed are the sa...