We’ve Been Here Before

Violence, Myths, and the Cycles of Renewal

As we inch closer to 2025, I can’t help but wonder if humanity has finally decided to lean all the way into chaos. Political division, climate disasters, wars, mass shootings—it’s like we’ve cracked open Pandora’s box and thought, Why not dump out the whole thing? Violence, whether literal or systemic, has become the background hum of modern life. And let’s be real: no amount of well-meaning TED Talks or kumbaya moments is going to get rid of it.

But here’s the thing: we’ve been here before and we need to accept that. Not in the “let’s accept rampant violence as inevitable and call it a day” sense, but in the sense that violence isn’t some new glitch in the matrix. It’s baked into human nature. And while that’s a depressing thought at first, it’s also strangely comforting. Because if violence is part of us, so is our ability to make sense of it, endure it, and maybe even find meaning in it.

How? Myths.

Myths, the stories we’ve told ourselves since we first huddled around fires trying not to get eaten by wolves, offer a roadmap. They don’t promise us a world without violence (spoiler: no one gets that happy ending), but they do show us how to understand it, live with it, and even transcend it. In a world that feels increasingly unmoored, that’s something worth holding onto.

Violence as human nature

Let’s start with the uncomfortable truth: violence is as human as laughter, love, or the ability to binge-watch an entire Netflix series in one sitting. Sure, it started as a survival instinct—kill the predator, protect the tribe—but we didn’t stop there. We got creative. Violence became a tool for power, a way to enforce hierarchies, or sometimes just a way to blow off steam (looking at you, Greek gods).

The Greeks knew this all too well. Their myths are full of petty deities throwing lightning bolts because someone looked at them wrong (or someone said they were the prettiest goddess of them all). But here’s what’s fascinating: myths rarely treat violence as random chaos. Instead, it’s framed as part of a larger story—one that almost always leads to transformation.

Take the Norse myth of Ragnarök. It’s the end of the world, full of apocalyptic violence: gods fighting giants, the earth swallowed by waves, and fire consuming everything in its path. It’s bleak. But then? A new world emerges. Green, fertile, and alive. Violence destroys, yes, but it also clears the way for renewal.

And if you’re thinking, Sure, but that’s just mythology, let’s not forget that the Bible plays by these same rules. The Book of Revelation pulls no punches—plagues, floods, fire raining from the heavens, and the Four Horsemen trotting across the land like they own the place. But the carnage has a purpose: the promise of a New Heaven and a New Earth. Even earlier, the story of Noah’s Ark follows a similar pattern. Humanity’s self-destructive streak gets a little out of hand (classic), and God wipes the slate clean with a flood. After the waters recede, the rainbow appears—a sign of renewal and a second chance.

These aren’t just stories about divine temper tantrums; they’re blueprints. They remind us that destruction isn’t meaningless—it’s part of the cycle. Violence may clear the board, but it also creates the space for something new to grow. Myths remind us that while violence isn’t going anywhere, it doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

Why we need myths more than ever

So why turn to myths to make sense of violence when we have, you know, social media? Because myths take the long view. They pull us out of the doom-scrolling cycle and remind us that what we’re experiencing isn’t new—it’s part of an ancient, deeply human pattern.

For example, the Hopi prophecies describe humanity as living in a cycle of worlds. We’re currently in the Fourth World, and (shocker) we’re screwing it up. The prophecies warn of destruction if we don’t restore balance, but they also offer hope: the Fifth World is waiting, if we can figure out how to reach it. Sound familiar? The Hopi myth reads like a poetic version of today’s headlines, only with fewer memes and more spiritual insight.

The Mahabharata, too, holds up a mirror to our current state of affairs. The great war at the center of the epic leaves almost everyone dead, proving (in case we needed the reminder) that violence driven by ego and revenge is a losing game. But the story isn’t just about war—it’s about what comes after. The survivors, scarred and humbled, have to figure out how to rebuild. It’s a message we’d do well to remember as we slog through our own battles, political or otherwise.

We can’t fix what’s broken, but we can endure it

Here’s the part where I could launch into some idealistic rant about how understanding myths will lead to world peace, but let’s be honest: violence isn’t going away. Ever. It’s part of the human condition, the shadow we all carry. Carl Jung would call it our “shadow self,” the part of us that we’d rather ignore but that controls us when left unchecked. Myths don’t let us off the hook. They make us face that shadow.

Take the story of Theseus and the Minotaur as an example (one of my favorites). The Minotaur, a monstrous reflection of human savagery, is hidden in a labyrinth—just as we hide our own capacity for violence deep within ourselves. Theseus doesn’t run from the labyrinth; he enters it, confronts the beast, and emerges transformed. But there is wisdom is knowing that the Minotaur wasn’t born a monster — he was made into one by the choices and decisions of the gods.

Or consider Kali, the Hindu goddess of destruction. She is chaos incarnate, her blood-soaked rampage embodying the sheer, terrifying power of unchecked violence. But Kali isn’t evil—she’s a force of fierce transformation. In myth, her rage consumes the battlefield until Shiva lies at her feet, reminding her to ground herself. Kali’s violence tears away illusion, destroys ego, and clears the path for spiritual renewal. She’s not there to make us comfortable; she’s there to show us the truth.

That’s the trick: the only way to master violence is to face it head-on, to acknowledge its presence and let it strip away what no longer serves us. In a modern context, this might mean confronting the violence we perpetuate—through systemic inequalities, unchecked power, or even our indifference—and finding ways to channel it. Myths teach us that violence, while inevitable, doesn’t have to consume us. It can be transformed into something purposeful, even sacred.

The world we build after destruction

So where does that leave us as we stumble toward 2025, a year that feels like it might bring more fire than light? It leaves us with a choice: not to eliminate violence (good luck with that), but to decide how we respond to it.

Do we let it fracture us further, or do we, like the survivors of Ragnarök, carry its lessons into the world we build next? Do we succumb to the chaos, or do we, like Theseus, confront the Minotaur within us and emerge stronger?

Myths remind us that while violence is a constant, so is resilience. They show us that destruction clears the way for creation, that chaos can lead to renewal, and that humanity, for all its flaws, has an uncanny ability to endure.

The world isn’t going to magically become less violent. But maybe, if we lean into the wisdom of myths, we can make sense of the cycles we’re trapped in. We’ve been here before, after all. And if the stories are to be believed, we’ll be here again.

The hope isn’t in erasing violence—it’s in knowing that, like the green world that rises after Ragnarök, something new is always waiting to grow.