Glamorizing Personal Memories In David Burkus's 'Eureka Myth'

It is no secret that recollections of historical events tend to be more romanticized than they may have actually occurred. Individual people commit this action on a daily basis when reminiscing upon an experience from the past. “In hindsight, people are often quick to invent explanations for unknown behaviors” (Burkus 27). This act of glamorizing personal memories is known as confabulation. In the second chapter of his book, David Burkus introduces what he calls the “Eureka Myth.” Burkus describes the Eureka Myth as exclusively accrediting creative ideas to some spontaneous moment of revelation. In fact, people love eureka moments, therefore, they take pleasure in hearing about famed creators bringing about creative innovations as a result of some spur-of-the-moment moment of epiphany. …show more content…
As legend would recall, one day the young scientist was enjoying the beautiful outdoors under an old apple tree. While resting for a while, an apple falls from its branches and strikes Newton atop his head. Then, all of a sudden, something clicked in his wandering mind which allowed him to conjure up a theory as to what force caused the apple to fall towards the earth. The story of Newton encompasses a majority of the Eureka myth and perfectly explains why the Eureka myth simply cannot hold any sort of veracity. Accrediting the theory of gravity to a mysterious occurrence of inspiration, namely a eureka moment, implies that Isaac Newton did nothing to theorize the law of gravity, but rather it was given to him with no supplementary research and experiments. This is a critical flaw in the Eureka