Lincoln Memorial Monument, Washington D.C.

Human always loves stories. We are a species that deeply embraces stories in our civilization. A major example: is holy books. Bible, Quran, or Mahabharata contain stories. I personally also love stories. My very first book, which I read when I was aged 2, was a story about a trapped dolphin in a fishnet (and now science proves a link between storybooks that we read when we were kids to our pro-environmental behavior in adulthood; this might be one example). Later when I was in elementary school, my dad bought me a book on Indonesian folklore, and I fell in love with that book. Without any conscious choice, I choose a career path in storytelling. My first job was to be a data storyteller, my second job was to be a digital campaign storyteller, my third job was to be a Komodo dragon storyteller, and now my fourth job, I am happy to declare that I am a climate change slash environment slash wildlife storyteller. And here I am, stealing some hours at the office to join a transmedia storytelling MOOC by UNSW and writing my daily life stories (oddly, with the knowledge of my boss).

In the last few days, I often re-read my old blog posts between the period of 2010-2012. I noticed that something big happened to me within this period, and it was life-changing. However, I don't remember what it was in particular. But judging from my writings, I think it was my college and organizational life. Taking a degree in psychology from the oldest Faculty of Psychology in Indonesia really had an impact on shaping my attitude toward many things. Plus, I never took any serious commitment to the organization in my faculty. I kicked myself out of my comfort zone and worked with people from various backgrounds at a moderately young age. That gave me a lot of stories to tell and experiences to be shared. And I think that was essential for a storyteller: getting the context, explanation, and daily life example.

Another thing that I just realized is that I finished my master's thesis using one of the big theories whose foundation was laid by Carl Jung (if you barely know him, the MBTI or 16 personalities measurement was based on his theory), named "Archetype". Archetype is a classic theory that's been used by so many storytellers across communication industries to build a story. The Male Divinity, Father, and Hero Journey were even used to build Darth Vader's character in Star Wars. I remember the hard times learning this classic theory, I was helped by a wonderful crash course on YouTube, and it helped me to ditch all of my confusion about Carl Jung's interpretation of world mythologies. Jung's books are really hard to understand (for me) because - to be honest, I am not a fan of his works. I often refer him as a psychic when I was an undergrad student. So finding a storyteller about storytelling really helped me out. The main job was to find proper archetypes for a Rusa timorensis character as my experimental instrument. Another funny thing - building a story about deer in 2013 was also the start of my connection with a best friend.

My admiration of stories is the beginning of how I fall for my boyfriend. My boyfriend is extremely good at history, a very classical person. When he was a little boy, he played piano. He grew up with parents who played The Beatles at home and grandparents who gave him a big book on evolution at a very young age. He is an avid PlayStation player and founder of a quite famous toys review website. His very first book was about dinosaurs, and with all of those interests, he's becoming an exceptional storyteller. I was freaked out when I found out that he sticks the line of evolution and world history in front of his personal notebook, but that was the time that I knew that this was a man that I won't be bored with having hours of discussion with. He always throws me interesting article links or books and spares his time to tell me a story. So when I was in a bookstore with him, he was stunned by the illustrations in this book; I decided to buy it - while he decided to buy another two books. We often do this - then we will share with each other what's in our books.

After I read the illustrated book, I was stunned by how different Greek and Asian mythologies are. For a note, my editor friend once told me that how mythology differs from legend is through the artifact. Legend has a real artifact, for example, a place or a stone, while mythology has none. I find that I am less enamored with Greek mythology. It's an epic full of lust, wrath, and fear of losing power. How Zeus always cheats on Hera and has kids with as many women as he wants, how Iason betrays his promise to make Medeia the love of his life, or how Gaia tries so hard to make Uranus happy so she keeps giving birth to another child.... and many others. I prefer stories that revolve around daily life challenges, such as Princess Kaguya or The Tale of Ox Leather Sandals. I think the problem is just me, as I don't favor fiction books than non-fiction (Agatha Christie is an exception); I grow fond of real-life hero journey stories like John Nash, Carl Sagan, Wiji Thukul, Buddha, Dian Fossey, Mohammad Hatta, and others. I second a line in Captain Fantastic movie that we should celebrate the life of real people rather than celebrate the life of fictional characters. I was happy that I got the chance to visit the Washington DC National Mall* and the parks around where the memorial statues of big leaders in the US were located. Standing in front of each memorial and reading their own stories really brought me into desolation.

I personally think that mythology helps our ancestors and us to build an ideal self of human beings, our deepest desire. Meanwhile, in fact, real-life stories help us realize our actual selves. From the side of psychology, it is healthy to maintain the gap recognition between our ideal self and actual self. What matter next is our effort to move our actual self forward to be closer to our actual self.

It is a lifetime attempt we'll never know what the success parameter is.

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*mall here is not a shopping place but a large, open area for people to gather