Dear Nick, Thank you for your e-mail. It arrived at an opportune moment, when, just having placed the finishing touches on my electrical installation here, I entertained, and was entertained by, what appears as a new thought/insight, an idea about which I feel urgency to spout off, perhaps to fashion an objective conceptual structure which might then be subject to further analysis, amplification, clarification. But first about this almost completed yet incomplete island house where I would invite you to visit me if I had a bed for you. But as of tonight this six-bedroom house has only two beds, one of which is occupied by Tim LeBlanc, the 60 year old arthritic carpenter with whom I originally became acquainted when he built the spiral stair Belmont addition in 1999, and more recently, beginning about 15 years ago, when he framed this slow growing project on the Nantucket heath. The other bed on which it is I who toss and turn, is unavailable, because my only alternative would be try to sleep on the floor, on the air mattress which I improvidently brought along. Then I could not get out of bed, off the floor, quickly enough when urgent business demanded transaction, with dire and embarrassing consequences. As soon as Tim has gone, or as soon as there are more beds, I would be happy to see you. Myth is the word that summarizes my nascent inspiration. The characteristic of myth is that it is untrue and that its untruth is believable and is believed is what makes myth meaningful, significant and important. Conventionally what is held to be not true is disregarded and discarded. Myth, on the other hand is meaningful inspite and perhaps because of its truth being untrue, or its untruth being true. If my understanding of Greek cosmology is correct, being arises out of what is undefined, out of chaos; chaos is incomprehensible and irrational. As distinct from chaos, all being, everything that comes into existence is potentially susceptible to being defined, and thus to being known, to being understood, and to being interpreted with mathematics or language, i.e. symbolically. I interpret Aristotle's writings as the attempt to make the implicit rationality of all that exists explicit. Similarly Kant's metaphysics and ethics rely on the assumption of pervasive rationality and on a postulate of absolute truth. So far as I know neither Aristotle nor Kant came to terms with the fictitiousness of myth other than to dismiss it for lack of, of truth. Perhaps it is because my understanding of Aristotle and Kant is inadequate, that I am unable to rationalize the world in which I live, without reference to the essential untruthfulness of true myth, - or the truthfulness of untrue myth. For my own attempts to rationalize the world, I find the phenomenon of myth to be indispensable. I entertain and explore the hypothesis that all scientific and historical discourses (theses) should be considered mythical in their origins; their validity or truthfulness being determined by their effect on the actions of the individual and on the behavior of society. Myth presents itself as being self-evident and supernatural. Neither conceit is acceptable. To identify the nature of myth one presumes to trace its origins. Conventionally myth is considered a social phenomenon, understandably, because of the ease and pervasiveness with which ideas permeate society and impress themselves on its members. Therefore one ascribes myth to society, but society one discerns as a web of individuals, and one must imagine, assume, postulate myth arising from the thinking of individuals. One must ask what it means that an individual might espouse an idea which is not true. As distinct from the customary belief that a story is valued for its truth, I propose conversely that a story be deemed valuable inspite of being untrue, perhaps, indeed, because of being untrue. Pursuing this notion, I propose that one consider all narrative, scientific, historical, and political as sharing the qualities of myth in being in some degree, in some perspective or other, untrue; and then addressing the question of what it might be that makes the admittedly "untrue" narrative meaningful. I interpret my as the effluence into language of thought, subject to such stimuli and to such constraints as affect a given mind under given circumstances. The truth of this effluence is identity, congruence with itself. A myth is true to the extent that it corresponds with earlier versions of itself. A myth can be made true by extinguishing or amending an earlier contradictory version. The reference of myth to the mind of an individual is a heuristic simpification, inasmuch as the individual mind exists in confluence, context and contact singly with the minds of others and communally with the thought of the society, where thought, it should be noted, is accessible only through the expressionof the individual. Society functions through language; and is constituted by myth. Its myth is the very essence of society. The mental universe, the world of thought of the individual consists of many intersecting myths, which confirm and contradict each other. The individual strives for equanimity and function. Those myths, or those facets of myths that facilitate his striving he denominates as true, while those other myths, or those other facets of myth which impede his striving for equanimity and function, he calls untrue or false, mendacities or lies. It is worthwhile, perhaps it is essential, to identify criteria of truth and falsehood. If an individual feels pain when he stubs his toe it is truthful to say that this hurts, but it is also truthful to say this does not hurt, if the function of the statement is to preserve a stoic indifference to pain. Thus truth and untruth are determined by the significance of the statement to the individual or to the societywhich expresses it.