If it's a pattern that repeats in many, many places, with variation, you can abstract out the central pattern. So the pattern never purely existed in any specific form, but the fact that you pulled a pattern out from all those exemplars means that you've extracted something real. I think the reason that the story of Adam and Eve has been immune to being forgotten is because it says things about the nature of the human condition that are always true.
Other
“I guess that's the story of life: what you most fear never happens, but what you most yearn for never happens either. This is the difference between life and fiction. I suppose it's a good trade-off. But I'm not sure.”
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Philip K. Dick 278
American author 1928–1982Related quotes
Source: Dona Rosita la soltera
“Instead of fearing what could go wrong. Fear what happens if you never try.”
Future Proofing You (2021)
“Is it not strange that we fear most that which never happens?”
“…between what did happen and what ought to happened, I dont never have trouble picking ought.”
V. K. Ratliff in Ch. 6
The Town (1957)
“Are you sure you are not merely "programmed" in life by what by chance events happens to you?”
The Art of Doing Science and Engineering: Learning to Learn (1991)
Context: When you take a course in Euclidean geometry is not the teacher putting a... learning program into you?... You enter the course and cannot do problems; the teacher puts into you a program and at the end of the course you can solve such problems.... Are you sure you are not merely "programmed" in life by what by chance events happens to you?
Variant: Life is like a novel. It's filled with suspense. You have no idea what is going to happen until you turn the page.
“I've had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.”
Variant: I've lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.