Extra Reading: Epic of Gilgamesh

For this week's extra reading I chose to watch the CrashCourse video on the Epic of Gilgamesh! I had heard of the name before but had no idea what his life story/epic would be about, the morals therein, and the reasons why it became a popular myth.

A new concept that I learned about with this video was the monomyth, or hero's journey. Being introduced to the parts of a typical hero's journey was a cool treat; none of the components of it were surprising or foreign to me. Learning that those components were collected together and called a single thing was great to hear. This definitely eases the burden of recalling all the parts of a hero's journey and gives us a cleaner way to allude to them all. For this alone, I'm already glad I watched this video.

However, monomyths were not the only thing covered in this video. The main purpose of the video was to summarize and present the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh. The main takeaway from this video, for me anyway, was ways that one can learn from mistakes and grow past perceived limitations. Therein lies what made Gilgamesh a hero, regardless of his inability to acquire immortality. As humans, we can choose how we perceive the things that are thrown at us. I'm a firm believer that what you make of the things that happen to you is much more important than the actual things that happen to you. This falls in line with the idea that you should grab life by the horns and make it your own. Like Gilgamesh, no matter what we lose or what obstacles we have to face, we must continue to press on and not sacrifice our own happiness. That's all we can really do. 

Apparently, there are parallels in Gilgamesh's epic and The Bible! I'm curious to see how similar some parts may be. Source

Bibliography:
CrashCourse, The Epic of Gilgamesh: Crash Course World Mythology #26, Source