It's so interesting to read this piece as an outsider. I grew up in South Africa and immigrated to Canada when I was 9, so my experience of the US has always been as a place that's either "on the opposite side of the earth" or "right next door."
I don't feel like it's my place to say whether you guys need a new shared mythology, but I thi…
It's so interesting to read this piece as an outsider. I grew up in South Africa and immigrated to Canada when I was 9, so my experience of the US has always been as a place that's either "on the opposite side of the earth" or "right next door."
I don't feel like it's my place to say whether you guys need a new shared mythology, but I think you could make a very strong argument for it, as you do here.
Like you, I was raised in Christianity (Anglican), then went through a Dawkins/Hitchens phase, then started to shift back to my roots a little bit, at least in the sense of seeing value in a formal system and a shared story. I think life, while beautiful, can be so utterly terrifying that it really does help to have a way of making sense of everything. A shared narrative can help us put our lives back together after tragedy, and give us strength to move forward. Not to mention the immense value of traditions that compel us to celebrate and practice gratitude at the same times of year, year after year.
Thank you for writing and sharing this piece! It gave me a lot to think about.
Rebecca! Thank you so much for reading and sharing your experience here. It's interesting that we had a similar trajectory with the atheism movement and then going back to a more informed and mature form of spirituality.
It's interesting that Sam Harris moved away from his strict atheism and talks more now about meditation. I didn't mention it in this article, but I discovered Buddhist philosophy and meditation in my 20s, which has been hugely helpful.
We Americans are always thinking about ourselves (hah) but I think the principles here apply to any nation or any group of people really. It's an innate human need to believe in something. But the tricky part is figuring out what that is. I totally agree with you about gratitude. It's such a powerful practice.
It's so interesting to read this piece as an outsider. I grew up in South Africa and immigrated to Canada when I was 9, so my experience of the US has always been as a place that's either "on the opposite side of the earth" or "right next door."
I don't feel like it's my place to say whether you guys need a new shared mythology, but I think you could make a very strong argument for it, as you do here.
Like you, I was raised in Christianity (Anglican), then went through a Dawkins/Hitchens phase, then started to shift back to my roots a little bit, at least in the sense of seeing value in a formal system and a shared story. I think life, while beautiful, can be so utterly terrifying that it really does help to have a way of making sense of everything. A shared narrative can help us put our lives back together after tragedy, and give us strength to move forward. Not to mention the immense value of traditions that compel us to celebrate and practice gratitude at the same times of year, year after year.
Thank you for writing and sharing this piece! It gave me a lot to think about.
Rebecca! Thank you so much for reading and sharing your experience here. It's interesting that we had a similar trajectory with the atheism movement and then going back to a more informed and mature form of spirituality.
It's interesting that Sam Harris moved away from his strict atheism and talks more now about meditation. I didn't mention it in this article, but I discovered Buddhist philosophy and meditation in my 20s, which has been hugely helpful.
We Americans are always thinking about ourselves (hah) but I think the principles here apply to any nation or any group of people really. It's an innate human need to believe in something. But the tricky part is figuring out what that is. I totally agree with you about gratitude. It's such a powerful practice.
Thanks again for reading!