I find increasingly that the more extreme are the things going on in your life, the more cultural reference points fail you. More mythical reference points actually help, and you realise that's what myths are for. It's for human beings to process their experience in extremis.
Interpretation
In extreme situations, conventional cultural references often fall short, and mythical stories can provide a deeper understanding of our experiences.
Michael Sheen suggests that during extreme circumstances in life, traditional cultural references may not provide the necessary comfort or understanding. Instead, he posits that myths serve a crucial role in helping individuals process their experiences and emotions when faced with challenging situations, allowing for a deeper reflection on the human condition through timeless narratives.
In practice
In a discussion about coping with grief, one might quote Sheen to highlight the inadequacy of cultural norms in explaining deep sorrow.
For a culture that has such a problem with death, we seem to deal with it in a quite bizarre way. We see people shot, killed and blown up, and we find it funny and sexy and all those things. But, the reality of it is that every day people die, and people are really sad and they grieve and they go through a really difficult process with it.
Stories have always been the things that entertain me and make me feel happy and sad and move me and give me the experience of being able to live many lives in one lifetime. It's the best thing about being alive.
When I was at drama school, I wanted to change the world, and thought I had some great wisdom to impart to people about humanity. Now that I'm older, I know enough to realise that I know nothing at all.
Dear brothers and sisters, after the great Pope John Paul II, the cardinals have elected me - a simple, humble worker in the vineyard of the Lord.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies.
Most of us came here in chains and most of you came here to escape your chains. Your freedom was our slavery, and therein lies the bitter difference in the way we look at life.
The trouble with conspiracies, even those that are to everybody's advantage in the long run, is that they are open to abuse. If manipulators really had the powers claimed, they could win the lottery every week. I prefer to point out that they could also win a Nobel Prize for discovering fundamental physical forces hitherto unknown to science.
It is as natural to die as to be born; and to a little infant, perhaps, the one is as painful as the other.
Towns are after all excrescences, grey fluxions, where men, hurrying to find one another, have lost themselves.
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