So one myth that clearly won’t help us to confront our current crisis of unsustainability is the myth of collapse: the idea that we’re inevitably heading for a massive ecological crash, and that the best guide to our shared future can be found within the pages of post-apocalyptic fiction.

For Jung, the path to achieving this task involved sacrificing the grasping ego and the fake personae that we assume in dealing with the world, in the process opening space for a whole, genuine expression of the true self. Just as atonement is how wholeness is restored to creation, individuation is how wholeness is restored to individual

The recurring discovery I made in each virtual world I entered was that although every one of these environments was fake, the experiences I had in them were genuine. VR does two important things: One, it generates an intense and convincing sense of what is generally called presence. Virtual landscapes, virtual objects, and virtual characters seem

climate activists can often seem more interested in maintaining the moral high ground than in bringing along people who think differently. Marshall notes that the climate movement often displays contempt for the right-leaning mainstream and their concerns, talking acidly about conservatives’ selfishness, greed, or stupidity – in the process

We are creatures of story, at our strongest when we tell of how the forces of good can conquer evil, and at our weakest when we allow others to tell our story for us in terms of false virtues and little more than what makes us content.

I was asked to come on board as the panel’s writer, the person charged with finding the right words to express the collective view of its members.

With lower group participation and less social capital, there are fewer places to think collectively about our myths and values – a particular problem given that small groups have such a crucial role to play as the building blocks of long-lasting movements which have the power to incubate and diffuse new values. Where then can we look to kindle

(In psychological language, this is a shift from extrinsic to intrinsic motivation, which research shows over and over again is a far more powerful basis for action.6)

Myths are the most fundamental narratives of all. The ones that tell us where we are, how we got here, where we’re trying to go, and how to get there – and, underneath it all, who we are. Myths don’t just explain the world: they explain us, too.