The Study of Myth or Creating a Myth?

Part of what made the study of myth appealing was getting to learn about the cultural context surrounding it. There was always more to uncover when looking into the origins of myths and the role storytelling played in various cultures. For instance, a myth could have much to do with religion and teachings that develop over centuries or it could have nothing to do with religion at all. It was interesting to get to know about the development of literature as well and how the myths could be applied to life today. That would be one thing that was similar to the process of creating a myth since part of the criteria was to have the myth explain some kind of phenomenon that occurs in the present. I liked being able to create an outlandish backstory to something arbitrary to then give it some more importance or depth that would be made possible by the content in the myth. I think a significant difference from studying myth that I noticed was how unserious our myths could be seeing as how the myths we studied tended to be meant to instill virtues. Something I'll take away is the method of explaining the myth we were assigned. I think it was a good exercise to think of the perspective of a certain demographic and then tailor the style of presentation to that.