In ancient Greece, the emphasis moved away from groupishness in ancient Greece onto the individual. This is a really extraordinary idea and it's completely different to kind of how we're wired up. So that kind of individualistic self-starting mindset becomes a kind of cultural ideal. You see the idealized physical forms in statues in the marketplace. And this is the culture that comes up with the myth of Narcissus, which is this kind of warning story about this guy who sees his reflection in some water and he falls in love with the reflection. Then when he realizes that he can't marry the reflection because it's actually him, he ends up dying with despair and heartbreak.
Will Storr, an award-winning journalist and novelist, joins us for this episode of The Unmistakable Creative. Will takes us on a journey through the history of 'self'. He explains how early human societies are responsible for much of how we live in the modern-day world. Why have we become so self-obsessed and what is it doing to us? The irony is that we’d love to know and Will has an answer at will blow your mind.
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