History | Midstream Musings

[Draft 5-25-2026]

Introduction
Parables about human nature
Coyote in mythology
Parallels in other major religions
The trickster as an “on-ramp” in storytelling
An outline for the structure of a trickster’s character arc
Examples of story premises
Scenario: Homelessness in the LA mayoral race
The story in no more than 5000 words
Related posts / pages
Notes

Introduction

A story on CBS News Sunday Morning about the coyote reminded me of the mythology surrounding the animal – as a trickster. As a narrative on-ramp in tales of moral behavior. A structure for conflict & growth in stories, in films or TV series like: Gods of Egypt (2016), Zootopia (2016), and The Good Place (2016 season 1).

This post is exposition for the story: A Clear Way for LA

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Pondering the big picture, what has changed in the last 100 years or so …

This article (republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license) is a useful recap of our understanding of human evolution, and an excellent visualization of that story, including salient talking points.

The millions-of-years history of our rise as a species is a fascinating story of patient pursuit of knowledge. A pursuit all too often underfunded and under-resourced, starting with singular archeological discoveries and growing into multidisciplinary collaboration. That joint research expanded the outlines of our story from bones & stones to geographic and climatic events, to genetic (DNA) arcs, and to social and cultural changes.

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Midstream Musings

we scale ourselves and return Sisyphus …

Tag Archives: History

The trickster in myth – moral scales & storycraft scrapes

Table of contents

Introduction

Our longest saga – the evolution of humanity