I was reading the other day a review of an upcoming exhibit, in Philadelphia, of the work of the deceased artist Jason Rhoades (who, tragically, died of an accidental drug overdose and heart disease at the age of 41).  Central to the exhibit is Rhoades's The Creation Myth.  According to Rhoades at the time he produced it, The Creation Myth attempts to represent how people processe information, make memories, and develop transcendent things, like art or music, or hate and love.  As I pondered this, I realized that Rhoades aptly captured the essential and necessary flow and content of human experience.  Fundamental to our sense of self is our ability to process information, of any kind, as we move through our world.  It is then with this information that we develop ideas with which we formulate how we will respond to our various realities, and it is with these responses and engagements with reality that we form memories.
     From one standpoint, the story could stop here.  We process, we respond, we remember; we process, we respond, we remember; we process, we respond, we remember, and one day we die.  Sure, as Rhoades seemed to say, we may do art, we may do music, we may engage our higher sensibilities, but we never go beyond the fundamental schemata of process, response, memory.  It's a circle with nothing beyond it.
     Viewed from another angle, however, it's a circle with everything beyond it.  Myth or not, creation cannot occur in a vacuum, and myth or not, transcendence cannot be unless the fact of transcendence exists.  We do transcendence, be it art, music, literature, or anything else, because there is transcendence to be found.  And transcendence cannot be, much less be found if the circle is on its own.