Your life is a story. You have been many places and done many things, and in the process, you have been many versions of yourselves. The resulting story can be a powerful thing. It is something that can be reframed and retold, and the telling shapes how it continues in the future. "We were fundamentally helpless" is different from "power was taken from us, but we can take it back."
On a deeper level, your way of existing is a story. There has never been a self or group of selves exactly like yours. It will not exist again. Your way of being is unique, and with that comes a more personal type of story. It is the story of what you are and how you work. Some beings like to use labels to describe this story: words that do not move. This one finds it more helpful to see it as mythology.
Mythology grows. Mythology changes to suit the needs of the people that tell it. Mythology is not always the same as external reality, but there is truth to it. There is meaning. When there is an eclipse, science says that there is not really a dragon eating the sun, but the story speaks truth about the fear of the world going dark and the drive to reclaim power from something larger. It explains the undefinable.
Moreover, a myth is real to those who tell it. In a sense, there is a dragon eating the sun. There are gods exerting their will on the world. Belief shapes how people interact with the world; it decides what is true. People act in accordance with what they believe. If they believe that a god willed them to behave a certain way, then they will do so. The myth becomes the reality.
People do not always agree on what mythologies are true. One may believe that there are angels and devils, while another may believe in gods-within-gods. Neither can be proven right or wrong. Both experience their mythology as true to them. Both feel that their stories give the world meaning.
You may write your own mythology. The meaning you give your experiences can be deeply personal and unique. It can shape the way you interact with yourself. The same events can be viewed in a thousand different ways, and the truth of them comes down to what stories you decide to tell.
You have grown up surrounded by mythologies. You are told that the shape of your brain tells a particular story, that you fit into others' concept of the world in a particular way. You have been told that you are smart, lazy, stupid, hard-working, angry, easygoing, and many other things. When you fail, you are given a story of why. When you succeed, there is another story. Perhaps you were raised into a religion or social group with their own story about the world. Perhaps you were told you were uniquely good at a hobby or had worthwhile dreams.
Your childhood may have imposed a story on you. It may have told you that you are small and powerless, that you do not have worth, that you are lesser. It may have taught you that you are loved and important, that you are capable. It may have told you that you cannot know what you are. The world is consistent. You are a thousand incompatible things at once that cannot predict the world around you. You are nothing; you are enough. You will always be hurt by the ones you love.
The plural community has created its own stories and expectations around them. You are expected to begin in a way that is common and agreed-upon. You were born into your body, you sheared after trauma, you created each other later in life, you walked in from elsewhere. While you are here, you are expected to be named and shaped. You are expected to be individuals who only happen to share time with one another because of your common body. You are expected to persist until you merge with another or your body dies.
The alterhuman community has created stories as well. Often, it is that you are an animal soul in a human body, typically for spiritual reasons. If given the opportunity, you would choose to be that animal again. The animal is consistent and can be determined objectively by studying your behavior and experiences. The animal is not chosen, and you could not stop being it. It is at the center of what you are for your entire life.
Groups of people tell stories to bind them together. You do not have to accept these stories. You may reject them and tell your own. The ways in which you understand yourself and the world are a choice; do not forget that.
Link to this for long-term: https://d723.owlsroost.xyz/articles/on-personal-mythology.html