We all recognize the trope of the mentor figure in the hero’s journey, right? Luke Skywalker needs both Obi Wan Kenobi and Yoda to reach his potential as a jedi. Frodo needs Gandalf to lead him along the first stage of his journey, and his lack in the beginning of the Fellowship almost costs him his life and the quest.
My own first novel, The Song of the Sirin, is influenced profoundly by Russian mythology, so there should be the same kind of mentor, right? But not at first, and it’s the pronounced lack of a mentor figure for Voran causes him to fail in pitiful fashion at the first sign of trouble.
But you might be saying to yourself: surely all that’s good enough for stories. We don’t need those kinds of mentors for real life, do we?
Well, let me paint a picture for you.
There was an unfortunate young man who, freaked out by the initial wave of deaths during the pandemic, still needed to walk into a grocery store. He walked in, but then he froze in place, terrified utterly. When one of the store staff came up to him, he explained that had no idea where to go. It turned out that this store hadn’t yet put down those arrows that tell you how to properly socially distance. And the young man couldn’t move without that direction.
Or take another example. You’re sitting with your significant other on the couch, and you’ve decided to let Netflix’s algorithm help determine what to watch. Forty-five minutes later, you still haven’t chosen anything, even thought the expertise of Netflix’s AI has offered you hundreds of options.
This need to optimize every aspect of life because of our perc3eived lack of expertise (and the perceived presence of expertise somewhere out there in the internets) is starting to seriously affect our daily life.
And, ironically, it’s leading to a strange counter-reaction. When the experts fail us, what do we do? We are just as likely to decide to trust our own instincts and knowledge, since all expertise is inherently flawed.
The result? Confirmation bias, exacerbated by social media and its algorithmically generated content. By extension, it leads to an increasingly fractured society and an epidemic of loneliness that we’re only now beginning to grapple with.
Ok, so maybe we do need a mentor… But how do we find a mentor? After all, look what’s going on in the medical community with Covid! For months we’ve heard of nothing but suppression, suppression, suppression and mitigation and masks and whatnot. But now? 17,000 have signed the Great Barrington Declaration, and as of this week, the WHO has stopped recommending the very lockdowns that it pushed at the beginning.
What to do? Whom to trust?
I being to grapple with this issue in my latest video:
History as Mentorship
One of the great ways of finding mentors is looking to the past. Over the past few years of doing research into Russian history for my novels, I’ve come across many fascinating stories about heroes from history who can provide very good examples of mentorship for specific life situations. Here are some of the best ones:
Dostoyevsky’s secret ingredient for success: his brilliant, long-suffering wife
Olga: the Viking queen of the Rus
Prince Dmitry Pozharsky: a hero perfect for our time
Constantine the Great: Russia’s secret tsar
Literature as Mentorship
One of the functions of literature is to provide consolation, or a sense of unity or wholeness with other human beings or with a higher power or authority. This can be the most powerful kind of mentorship, because it speaks directly to the heart, not to the mind. I talk about this idea in my writer’s manifesto.
Here are some recommendations that I offer of literature that consoles, entertains, but also inspires us to live better lives.
A book that will change how you see the world
An alternative to thinking about election cycles
Nicholas Kotar’s master recommendation list for Sci fi and Fantasy
Culture creation: learning to become a mentor
As we seek our mentors, it would also be a good idea, I think, to become the kind of person whom other people can eventually come to see as a mentor figure. This isn’t setting yourself up as an expert when you’re not. This isn’t pushing yourself forward in a prideful or arrogant way. What I’m talking about is educating and forming yourself to become a person that people like to spend time with. I’m talking about using your time and your life to acquire wisdom.
You know, the way people used to.
Here are some posts that may help you start thinking about this process, from a storytelling perspective:
Why becoming a storyteller may be the most important thing you do with your life
Empathy vs Compassion: or how Game of Thrones got it all wrong
Paganism vs Christianity in Popular Culture
If you found this post in any useful or interesting, please do share it with your friends!
And if you’d like to receive my expanded list of recommendations on how to become more resilience and courageous through story, click the image below:
