Finding meaning in tragedy is a perennial human task, as is the task of remaking of the self. We must learn to do both while creating a new world. Grief is warranted. Fear is warranted. Pain is inevitable. But in so far as the future matters, learning must become our primary process.

A telos crisis is defined by the fact that people in it don’t know what their purpose is. When this happens, they become fragile. Nietzsche says that he who has a “why” to live for can endure any “how.” If you know what your purpose is, you can handle the setbacks. But when you don’t know what your purpose is, any setback can lead to total collapse

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We suffer from a kind of mythic deprivation. We don’t just need ‘new stories’ because we are inundated with stories. The point, as Alex Evans has recently argued, is that we need to bring mythos back into our lives