Daily Inspiration Quote by J. Michael Straczynski

Straczynski frames myth less as antique storytelling than as cultural GPS: it sets a horizon (purpose, direction) and then turns the lens back on the traveler (identity, origin, destiny). The line works because it refuses the cozy idea of myth as escapism. Instead, it treats narrative as infrastructure: the invisible map a society consults when it needs to justify sacrifice, define belonging, or imagine a future worth building.

As a TV producer and long-form storyteller, Straczynski is speaking from the trenches of serialized meaning-making. In a medium often dismissed as disposable, he argues that people still hunger for the old functions myth performed: giving shape to chaos, turning private anxieties into shared symbols, and making time feel like a story instead of a blur. The “horizon” metaphor is key: myths don’t just explain; they orient. They are teleological, not merely descriptive.

The subtext of “Western society… has lost that” is a critique of modern fragmentation: secularization, consumer culture, and algorithmic attention splinter shared narratives into personalized feeds. When he says “aimless and wandering,” he’s not pining for gods and swords; he’s diagnosing a deficit of collective storyline. Without commonly held myths, politics becomes administrative or apocalyptic, identity becomes branding, and community becomes a temporary coalition of vibes.

There’s also a quiet warning embedded in the nostalgia. If constructive myths fade, substitute myths rush in: conspiracy, grievance, purity fantasies. Straczynski’s point isn’t that myth is optional; it’s that it’s inevitable, and we’re currently outsourcing it to the loudest, cheapest storytellers.