I find increasingly that the more extreme are the things going on in your life, the more cultural reference points fail you. More mythical reference points actually help, and you realise that's what myths are for. It's for human beings to process their experience in extremis.
Interpretation
In extreme situations, conventional cultural references often fall short, and mythical stories can provide a deeper understanding of our experiences.
Michael Sheen suggests that during extreme circumstances in life, traditional cultural references may not provide the necessary comfort or understanding. Instead, he posits that myths serve a crucial role in helping individuals process their experiences and emotions when faced with challenging situations, allowing for a deeper reflection on the human condition through timeless narratives.
In practice
In a discussion about coping with grief, one might quote Sheen to highlight the inadequacy of cultural norms in explaining deep sorrow.
For a culture that has such a problem with death, we seem to deal with it in a quite bizarre way. We see people shot, killed and blown up, and we find it funny and sexy and all those things. But, the reality of it is that every day people die, and people are really sad and they grieve and they go through a really difficult process with it.
Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.
When I was at drama school, I wanted to change the world, and thought I had some great wisdom to impart to people about humanity. Now that I'm older, I know enough to realise that I know nothing at all.
Even if it’s a dumb story, telling it changes people just the slightest little bit, just as living the story changes me. An infinitesimal change. And that infinetisimal change ripples outward —ever smaller but everlasting. I will get forgotten, but the stories will last. And so we all matter —maybe less than a lot, but always more than none.
Death is staring too long into the burning sun and the relief of entering a cool, dark room.
Trust is a social good to be protected just as much as the air we breathe or the water we drink. When it is damaged, the community as a whole suffers; and when it is destroyed, societies falter and collapse
All earthly joy begins pleasantly, but at the end it gnaws and kills.
The myths underlying our culture and underlying our common sense have not taught us to feel identical with the universe, but only parts of it, only in it, only confronting it - aliens.
In the social jungle of human existence, there is no feeling of being alive without a sense of identity.
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