Aye well there you have it I guess, we all have our own tastes, and some like to read more than others. As an aspirational working class man my dad loved to read, even now in his 88th year when I visit weekly theres a different pile of a half dozen books with bookmarks shot through on every subject under the sun, and by the time I the 4th son was born there were plenty on the shelves for me to choose. Television use was rationed in our house, we were expected & encouraged to read or go out and play. My mum also loves language and complex tales (shes Aaron Sorkins biggest fan, I swear), she probably started me off with bedtime stories of the myths she had been brought up with, and encouraged increased vocabulary with constant word games. Thing is I have diaries & other evidence going back 2oo years that such behaviour regarding books, language & learning was a tradition on both sides of my family, and to my mind its an Irish tradition, obviously not going to be followed by everyone, people will drop off & break with the past for various reasons, but the preponderance of literary giants from our wee island & its 15oo year history of writing (including saving Western learning during the Dark Ages and returning it to mainland Europe when they were ready) - and we can't forget the penal laws that banned our formal education for generations, which we got around by using "hedge schools", and ultimately it is felt backfired like every other tactic in the oppressors handbook by solidifying a respect for learning indicates a distinctive trait in the Irish psyche for writing, language & communication (i'd like to think thats a human trait). Even the least educated among us make wonderful gobshites
Och these things are poopooed to some extent as largely irrelevant in the modern world, quaint & worthless. Nothing could be further from the truth. The myths of your people & locale will be closer to you than any other entertainment, and they convey deep human issues as well as geographical info. The myths of other cultures can provide insight into them, and also a sense of connection through the similarities. These things are 1ooo-7ooo years old, and show how little we have really changed in all that time, such realisation is enlightenment.
I'm personally convinced that my early introduction to myths has been nothing but beneficial to my life, and I skipped a hell of a lot of school myself bored to tears, my education is primarily the result of my parents, fair play to them, they did it right.
The thing I recognise about all our myths, in the culture when they were popular, they were the main force of social engineering behaviour (seems we've replaced that with prison & threat of prison). Homers tales emboldened the Spartans all wanting to be Achilles, Viking tales gave them no fear of death as there was nothing for them to fear since their fate was already set, Arthurian tales produced the age of Chivalry. These things created, transmitted & dispersed the Zeitgeist of their era, but no longer, and it is a shame.
