Random Thought: Legends Are Lies

All legends are lies.  They do not exist, they are something we created for our own satisfaction.  Legends exist to satisfy an urge for stories in the human mind.  All legends are lies.

They are fabrications mean to lubricate key memories.  Memories of the dead.  The dead must linger on, so the lies about them mount.  Legends have to be erroneous.  Otherwise, they would tarnish the point.

A story is an idea.  Ideas don't die.  Or at least, they outlast a human lifespan by a bit.  Immortality by idea.  Even then, though, rot sets into the tales.  Things become forgot.  Embellishments happen.

Legends are meant to be immortal things.

They fail in that regard.  We cling to stories.  We need them in order to live.  Stories don't always work.  They sometimes fail us.  Sometimes legends create feedback loops.  They lead to madness.  Conspiracy theories are legends that have failed in some fashion.

There has to be a purpose to all things.  That is what the Legend tells us.  When we find there to be no purpose behind a curtain, it breaks our minds.  It means we gaze into an abyss.

An Abyss.  One where are no answers.  One where questions linger.  Where we see the complexity and cruelty around us.

Are legends bad then?  Or are they needed?  Do people need the lie to live?

Can we abandon our lies, or are we trapped by them?

History and Story

History is filled with a series of legends.  These are those things that bind us to our people.  These are those tales that bind us together.  But even then, these legends also contain the toxicity of our own society too.

There is a narrative to the legends we remember.  But questioning why some must be reviled, others ignored and still more that can never be remembered in legend.

Our stories paint legendary figures in the same light as our culture's favored majority.  They become white, straight men, faithful to god.  When you dare to break those legends, you are challenging the basis of psychology of people.

History is full of legends.  That is why you can't completely trust it.  Certain facts become hidden because they fail to match the accepted legends.

There is thought that censorship is some form of a sin.  But never do we think about those ignored.  We think the willful suppression of some facts to be an egregious error.  But we forget about those forgotten, those facts that are glazed over.

It isn't censorship to accept legends over facts.  It's faith.  It's a blind faith.

Is conviction to a lie more virtuous than the erasure of offensive language?  Or is the ideals of protecting against the harms of language something unrelated to legends?

One sees nostalgia, and sometimes must be careful not to be poisoned by it, I think.