The Golden Age, Upheaval, and Change

There is a recurring theme of the Golden Age in most mythologies surrounding the time before the fall of the old order.  What constitutes the old order can vary widely: to the Greeks it was the act of Prometheus stealing fire and delivering it into the hands of man, to the Norse it was the period following the end of Ragnarok, the Hindu have a 5000 year cycle (the Maha Yuga) with recurring Golden Ages that require a tearing down of their "iron age".  This extends even to the Abrahamic traditions with Adam and Eve being cast out of Eden for partaking of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil.

This Golden Age often alludes to nature being incredibly bountiful, providing everything that humanity could wish for and more.  There is a pronounced presence of the otherworldly.  In many cases, the gods dwelt in the same realm as mankind.  In Greece, Pan served as a mentor in Arcadia, living amongst his students in the trees.  The Eden myth is almost ubiquitous, depicting a paradise where the Abrahamic God resided alongside his creation.  The upheaval and fall of the old order always brings this Golden Age to an end, and humanity is left to struggle with the wilderness in a new and harsh environment, fraught with conflict, etc; you know the drill from there.

This is ultimately one of the myths that leads me to my unified theory about the myths and legends.  It is far from the only overlap (I'll likely discuss some of them at another date), but this is a rather striking point.  This Golden Age would imply that not only were the myths of the gods true, but might also imply the same for other myths and legends.  It is widely accepted that in the post-mythological era, magic and monsters are a thing of the past (albeit, this is an acceptance that took quite a while to be complete), at least in the sense that mythology demonstrates.  Depending on one's outlook, myth has either always been just stories, or a thing of the past.  The recurrence of the Golden Age concept seems to suggest the latter in my opinion; though it has little to no bearing on the present, the idea that this multi-culture spanning concept could stand as an example of where -- or rather when -- these legends originated seems like too great of a coincidence.

Most of these myths appear to be parallel to each other.  The numbers may not be reliable in any sense of the word, nor would they suggest anything remotely resembling the Golden Age returning any time soon, but the idea of a returning cycle seems to make sense.  Symbols of eternity are rampant throughout mythology, and much as the seasons themselves, humanity's path seems to move in a repeating circle.  The notion of falling and returning to this paradise, to this utopia of a Golden Age doesn't seem so far fetched when one considers how far we must fall and how quickly we climb in our scientific pursuits.

And yet, that poses another question, more philosophical in nature than theoretical contemplation of mythologies: If humanity flows through cycles of time, rising and falling to and from a Golden Age paradise, are we in our current path ascending or crashing down to earth?