Why does a culture need its own stories? Can't it just borrow someone else's?

The USA is too young to have formulated a mythology like classic civilizations did, and yet from our early years we still ended up creating fictional stories that are inherently ours.

Why?

In this special episode to help celebrate the 250th anniversary of the nation I grew up in, I explore a couple of reasons for this, and I share examples of stories so baked into our belief system of what it is to be "American" that we largely consider them to be true.
Because, as I'm discovering, it's not enough to have a belief system...it needs to be ours.

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Becoming The Main Character is a podcast that asks: what if fiction was so much more than just "fake" stories? What if every story was a simulation in the matrix? A chance to understand more of the world without having to live the experiences ourselves?

Here at BTMC, we examine the greatest fiction ever written through a lens that pays attention to the character choices and how they ultimately lead to our heroes and villains getting what they want or being defeated.

Subscribe and follow along!