In the Mythology unit I learned that myths symbolize the human experience and embody the values of a culture. I believe our myths define who we are. They answer the great questions of life about who we are, how the world was made, where we come from, why things happen, what values we should develop and how we should live. And every culture has its own stories that answer these and similar questions. Myths also embody cultural beliefs and a worldview in itself. Even if myths aren’t real they reflect real social and ethical concerns throughout time.

In essence, mythologies are stories told to explain things that people have questioned. For instance, every culture has a myth that explains the creation of the earth and the universe. Myths help people to understand the things that they may not be able to explain. In modern society, many scientific explanations of natural phenomena are tried and tested. Even then I often think to myself questions that people have pondered for ages. Even though I try to explain it using scientific understanding, it seems simpler to me to simply place these answers into stories, more than once I have found myself unconsciously making my own stories that answer these questions. I found this fact extremely interesting because it explained the purpose of myths. I have often wondered if myths were formed with a purpose to explain the phenomena of the world around them. Another reason this felt so important to me was because I could easily relate to not knowing something and making your own theory to explain it. When I was young, I had no clue how lights worked. To explain this, I decided that sunlight was caught and stored in light bulbs. Much like me, the people who invented the myths used them to explain the world around them and to explain their own place in it.

Myths from around the world reflect the culture of its people—their values, beliefs, and traditions, even their worldview. Myths show what values the people had by emphasizing things that were considered virtuous. Myths present guidelines for living. For example, in Hindu mythology, the morals of the myths were that following truthfulness was the ideal way to live. When myths tell about the activities and attitudes of deities, the moral tone implies society's expectations for our own behaviors and standards. This struck me as essential because this helps to connect us with the culture. I find connecting to cultures important as I can learn from their mistakes and their successes, and the best way to do this is to use their legacy; their myths. I personally find it interesting that a myth wasn’t just a couple of stories, but was in a sense the cultures worldview. This is amazing as I never thought the way a society views the world could be expressed through a story about the gods, but it can be explained. I used to believe I had to do an in-depth report on my worldview and even then I would still scratch only the surface, but in reality a worldview could be shown through my myths. For example the fact that in Hindu mythology heroes come and save the people in times of evil showed an optimistic worldview where people believe no matter how bad things are, good would come in the end.

Just as myths represented cultural