Yann Martel

So still patriarchal, but let's add a different element to make it slightly more uplifting.

And now, if someone, you know, now there's all kinds of feminist retellings of Little Red Riding Hood where she carries her own AK-47 and, you know,

shoots the wolf.

And that's totally fine.

Like no one's gonna say that's not true.

You'd be missing the point.

Of course you can play with the little red riding hood according to your need.

So that's what's great about myth is that they're a mechanism for understanding reality in a way that's very engaging and memorable.

and in a sense, truthful.

But it's not the truth of fact, it's a sort of post-factual, post-empirical kind of truth.

So that's what's great about it, is you can play with it and you can carry it with yourself.

Once again, a great example, once again, is Jesus.

You know, for those who believe, and I'm just using this as an example, Buddha, whatever you want, but what's great about Jesus is you can forget about the Jesus of history, because he's largely impossible to find.

Crazy American evangelicals are always going on about the Jesus of history, but really it's the Jesus of faith you want.

and that's because you can carry them with you.

So you can have an American multi-billionaire with 75 Lamborghinis and a terrible robber baron, and he can still say to himself, Jesus loves me, just as someone who works on the streets of San Francisco with people who are poor can also say, Jesus loves me.

They can both say, Jesus loves me, because you can carry that kind of story with you and make it fit.

So it can also increase your selfishness, I guess, but can also illuminate where you need to go.

Stories are like that.

They have to fit to you.