Our paradox is that joy, human joy, is based on a myth. A myth is a vision and feeling that we hold of a reality that is not yet real. Our joy, and almost all joy, is an expectation of something that is not now, but that we experience in the now which says something about the future, which has all the makings of a myth.
A myth is something that does not exist, and since the future does not yet exist, it is a myth. Joy is when we are most harmonious with our myths of what is yet to be. Our experience of the present in a joyful moment is that of complete harmony with what we want to be.
Mythology is a need that we have to be joyful. We are happiest in our mythology because our myths gives us harmony with our wants and desires. Creating myths helps us to be joyful and to move towards harmony with our world.
I created the mythological character of Wuh because I realized the joy that a harmonious character of a highly destructive history could bring.
In the ancient world, there was a tremendous clash of cultures as the Romans' vision and philosophy broke into the harmony of peoples innocent to the coming reality of Roman rule. It is often said that the Romans went about civilizing the communities they conquered. My understanding is very different.
The Roman story as told by the Romans is a form of escapism and a sort of mythology. Caesar was made into a hero by a destructive mythology. Similar mythologies are created by those building empires. They are frequently used when awful people justify their conquest and wide spread damage and once they have destroyed joyful communities. Examples are the Britons, the communities of Gaul, the peoples of Africa, the native communities of North and South America. The so-called conquering heros may not have made our world better, but like those that kill animals in the name of the hunt, perpetuate myths that excuse them from their evil acts and free them from conscience about the massive pain they have caused.
My anti-hero is Julius Caesar himself, a monster. We all know he was a monster because Shakespeare put him as the lead character in one of his most famous plays. The problem is that Shakespeare gave Julius a form that we have grown to love. While everyone around Caesar hated him, the modern reader has fallen in love with Caesar. Caesar is the hero of the modern age. Caesar, who destroyed so much that was harmonious and full of joy, is to be seen because of Shakespeare as a modern hero, and a good guy.
He was nothing of the sort. Caesar was a dispicable individual in debt, a lothsome man with a sickness. Caesar was a truly evil individual, who would stop at nothing for his joyful vision of civilized harmony. Our problem is that we identify Caesar with harmony and joy rather than what he actually represented and the massive pain and subjugation that he caused. The myth of the wicked Gaulite is in and the myth of the conquering hero continues. There were heros is Caesar's time, but he was not one of them. That is why I tell the story of Wuh, the mythological hero that gets the history closer to a joyful harmony.
Genocide would be a kind word for what Caesar did. He was guilty of creating the staging post for multiple genocides. More people died than in all our subsequent history books. Caesar ended the futures of billions of people who might have lived on earth, had he not existed. He is not to be worshipped. He was not a god. He was awful scum, a blight on human life, a sore of human history. The reality of Julius Caesar is that he was probably the darkest most wicked personality in history, yet has become the most loved. Yes! The modern myth of hero worship is complete. Caesar is the hero that kid's worship to their own disgrace. He, nevertheless, was a vile murdering bastard.
