A dreamed mate

Talking to El Marqués, we were exchanging impressions about several friends of each one who are getting married or even having kids. The annoying thing about it was no one is older than us, but they took the BIG STEP when we don't even have a girlfriend.
          We both were surprised since our friends' espouses don't seems to be especially smart, charming, pretty or at least industrious. When we asked our respective friends their reasons to get married, they didn't claim to be deeply in love or mad about their couples but in a state of trust and comfort with their future wives. Is this the end of the road? To marry someone which main attribute is to be known well enough to inspire trust and comfort? I can't speak for El Marqués, but I think I would be bored by someone like that, even before the wedding. My point is I don't visualize myself marrying someone who doesn't inspire me stronger feelings than just trust and comfort.
          In first place, I would like a woman in permanent evolution, someone who learns about things I don't know and, for example, surprises me with the new article that is writing, the new art that is learning or the new stage in her career that is attaining. No matter how long you have met this woman, I think you'll never be able to claim to know her entirely.
          In second place, I would like a woman who takes care about her appearance. I'm not asking for someone who spends half life in a gym or in a hairdresser's shop or on a surgery table but someone with healthy enough habits like to be good looking without have to hide herself under tons of makeup or fancy clothing. However, if she looks like a prom queen, I won't be mad at it at all. .. ;)
          In third place, such a woman has to be quite challenging. Since I'll feel compelled to deserve her I think I would be strongly encouraged to improve myself. I know this should be a goal I try to achieve for my own sake (independently from who I am with) but I believe the process is easier if you have a couple who shares your main goals and is the living proof of why you are trying to attain them.
          In fourth place I would put the feeling of trust and comfort as a reason to marry someone. It's quite important since a marriage is exactly like a business where you need a partner who doesn't let you down, no matter how hard the circumstances could become. Notice I didn't forget this reason our friends argued; I just don't think it for itself is enough to get married.
          In conclusion, I would marry a girlfriend whit whom I fell in love AND improves herself permanently AND encourages me to be better than I am, not just someone with I feel comfortable or due I'm too lazy to start again the difficult process of find someone I really like.

Why myths are important?

A myth is most times a symbolic representation of reality, and it's intended to be a guide that helps us to deal with life's challenges.

In first place, myths have been used by humans since oral tradition exists, long time before writing was invented. In its primitive origins, myths used to speak about forces of nature, then evolved to stories about gods and heroes. The purpose of those stories was people learned some universal true deducted through observation of human behavior or constants in how Nature works. Those stories was made in a format of kind of condensed and exaggerated study case where the characters make decision and we can be witness of how those decisions worked in the context of the story, thus we be able to compare the results with the goals the characters tried to achieve.

In my opinion, it's more enjoyable to listen this kind of story than simply listen the conclusion, but in addition most myths provide a context and some sort of circumstances that might be extrapolated and compared with real life situations.

However, myths are far from being just a simple collection of success stories supporting a methodology related with successful living. In first place, myths are encoded in order to reach our unconscious. Actually, those stories shows astonishing tragedies or inspiring epic journeys (sometimes they mix both) that are very unlikely to be faced by a regular human being in his/her lifetime. However this sort of exaggeration is useful to highlight the most relevant attributes of characters and situations in order to be processed not by our conscious but by our unconscious. It seems to be easier for the unconscious to process symbolic representations of reality than the real thing. This is important because myths are made to warn us about danger or to bring us hope, and if unconscious is aware of these messages then I guess our response to life's challenges would be the desired one in a more natural or automatic fashion than when a similar situation is just remembered by the conscious.

On the other hand, if myths weren't important then they would be forgotten long time ago. Indeed, nowadays most of old myths like Noah's Ark, Gilgamesh's journey, Ulysses' adventures , King Oedipus' tragedy or Romeo and Juliet's story still being popular. In addition, year after year people create new myths, which is the case of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Matrix, X-Men, Superman and a long etcetera. All those Twentieth Century's myths are in part so seductive because they follows the same encoding than ancient myths. And they worked as well as old myths still doing.

In conclusion, myths are important for people because they enlighten us about how to deal with life in an unconscious level, and their effectiveness is proven by ancient myths which still working as well as the new ones.