This is one of my favorite modern mythologies I’ve discovered and when you realize the significance and potential, it will really have you…
This is one of my favorite modern mythologies I’ve discovered and when you realize the significance and potential, it will really have you wondering where the rubber ducky might actually make a lot of sense in your life. Today I’ll teach you about the personal and cultural mythology of the rubber ducky.
Patrick is a great friend of mine, he’s funny, intelligent, and like the rest of us can struggle with self perception. How do others view me? How do I see myself? These questions can hinder us in the most unexpected places, and so it was with Patrick and his bike.
He got himself an all electric bike to get around on. A fun and useful little investment, but what he didn’t factor in was the size. It’s pretty small in stature and Pat’s not a small dude, neither is his personality. His usual attire is sporty wraparound sunglasses and Filson baseball cap, which he says might make him look like an army brat to others but is just a matter of comfort to him, so he’s ok with that.
Problem is, as soon as he hops on the diminutive electric bike he feels like the world is looking at him.
“Who’s the serious looking weirdo on the little bike?”
This is the kind of thing he began telling himself people might be thinking. Eventually, feeling silly, he just stopped using his bike as much. This is something I think everyone can relate to — something you enjoy doing gets restricted, hindered, or corrupted by real or perceived judgement from others. It sucks but is also just part of being human. Do we really have to put up with it and let our favorite things go? I’m guessing that at some point, all of us have.
But remember, Patrick is witty and smart and it was just a matter of time until those personality traits kicked into gear with the solution.
Let’s take a quick archetype quiz here. What things in life might possess the traits of: Disarming, Humorous, Playful, Facetious, or Indifferent?
A few answers could be: Comedians, Dad Jokes, Kids, the song We’re Going to be Friends by The White Stripes, Puppies, Yellow, or…
the classic rubber ducky.
Small enough to fit on the bike, bright enough to always be seen, and silly enough to say “I don’t take myself that seriously and maybe you shouldn’t either.”. He stuck it on there and everything since has been water off a duck’s back.
What did it do? It tapped into the cultural beliefs surrounding the archetypal ducky. But the iconic bath toy wasn’t always a national symbol. In 1970, February 25th, Sesame Street featured popular muppet, Ernie, singing his Rubber Duckie song for the first time. It became a mainstream hit and peaked at #16 on the Billboard Hot 100. Since then it has appeared across the world as a beacon of having fun and being carefree, or in the case of the rubber duck debugging method, finding simplicity. Developers using this method keep a rubber duck handy while coding and, once in a while, explain their code, line by line, to the duck. If they feel that the explanation is too convoluted for the duck to understand, they work on simplifying the code.
The rubber duck is bright and friendly, and anyone who wheels around with such a thing must be a pretty laid back and affable person right? Right!
So that was it. That’s all it took. Utilizing his understanding of the cultural mythos around the rubber ducky, Patrick defeated years of ingrained beliefs about appearance that he’d become indoctrinated to from people, movies, cartoons, leaders, and everything else, using only a simple toy because he understood the power of Personal Mythology.
So the question then is, where might a rubber ducky loosen up your life? What other objects are bursting with mythological energy and how might they change parts of your life?
Follow me if you want to learn how to work with your own personal mythology. Share a story with me about how you’ve used personal mythology if you’d like to be featured or just want to chat :).