We caught up with the brilliant and insightful JUSTIN WILLIAMS a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
JUSTIN, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?
The most meaningful project I’ve worked on is Reborn: Virtues Constellation—not just the book itself, but the universe and mission that grew out of it.
The project began during a period when I was navigating grief, identity, and questions around power, mental health, and destiny. I wanted to write a story that didn’t separate myth from modern life—one that treated ancient archetypes as living forces still shaping who we are today. The result was a novel centered on a young man discovering that the gods never really left us; they simply learned how to hide inside institutions, systems, and people.
What made it meaningful wasn’t just completing the book—it was watching it become a bridge. Readers reached out sharing how the story helped them articulate their own struggles with purpose, mental health, or feeling “out of place” in the world. That feedback pushed me to expand the work into education, visual art, podcasting, and community storytelling—especially for young people and creatives who don’t often see themselves reflected in mythic or heroic narratives.
That same impulse now drives my work through Policy Titans, where I help nonprofits and artists secure funding to build real-world infrastructure for storytelling, education, and cultural preservation. Reborn taught me that stories aren’t escapes—they’re tools. When used intentionally, they can restore dignity, memory, and agency. That realization changed not just what I create, but why I create at all.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a writer and storyteller whose work centers on mythology, identity, and the unseen forces shaping modern life. I’m best known for Reborn: Virtues Constellation and for creating Myth Mentality, a creative and philosophical platform that explores how ancient archetypes still operate in our psychology, institutions, and personal relationships today.
Reborn began as a novel, but it quickly became something more. I was interested in what happens when myth isn’t treated as history or fantasy, but as a living system. The story follows a young man who discovers that the gods never disappeared—they adapted, embedded themselves in modern power structures, and continue influencing human behavior in subtle and dangerous ways. Through that lens, the book explores mental health, destiny, betrayal, and awakening, especially from the perspective of someone who feels both gifted and out of place in the world.
What surprised me most was how deeply readers connected to the work. Many saw their own experiences reflected in the characters—the feeling of being watched by forces you can’t name, of sensing there’s more going on beneath the surface of everyday life. That response led me to expand the ideas behind Reborn beyond fiction.
Myth Mentality, hosted on YouTube,grew out of that expansion. It’s a podcast and creative framework where I break down myths, symbols, and archetypes—not as stories from the past, but as active patterns still shaping culture, relationships, and power today. I use modern examples from media, history, and personal experience to show how myth continues to operate in real time, often without our awareness.
What sets my work apart is that I don’t approach mythology academically or nostalgically. I treat it as a living language—one that can help people understand themselves, their struggles, and the systems they’re navigating. I’m most proud of creating work that gives people a sense of recognition—of realizing they’re not broken or lost, but part of a much older story still unfolding.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
Several works and thinkers have profoundly shaped how I approach creativity, leadership, and long-term vision.
Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces has been foundational to my work. Campbell’s articulation of the monomyth gave me a language for something I had intuitively felt for years—that transformation follows a recognizable pattern, and that modern life still demands initiations, descents, and returns. That framework directly informs Reborn and Myth Mentality, especially the idea that awakening is not a single event but a series of trials that refine identity and responsibility.
I’m equally influenced by the Romantic tradition, particularly Lord Byron and William Blake. Byron’s defiance, intensity, and willingness to stand apart from society shaped how I think about the role of the individual against institutional power. Blake’s vision—that imagination is not fantasy but a divine faculty—deeply informs my belief that creativity is a form of perception, not escape. His insistence on seeing the infinite within the finite is central to how I construct mythic meaning in contemporary settings.
Platonism is the philosophical backbone beneath all of this. Plato’s ideas about forms, shadows, and the tension between appearance and truth mirror the core questions I explore in my work: what is real, what is merely projected, and what happens when someone turns toward the source of light rather than the comfort of illusion. That worldview shapes how I think about power, knowledge, and responsibility—especially the cost of seeing clearly.
Together, these influences have taught me that meaningful creation—whether artistic or entrepreneurial—requires depth, courage, and a willingness to descend before you ascend. They’ve guided me toward building work that isn’t reactive or trend-driven, but mythically grounded and enduring.
Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?
Yes—at the heart of everything I create is a single, steady mission: to restore myth as a living language for understanding identity, power, and purpose in the modern world.
Through Reborn and Myth Mentality, I’m driven by the belief that many people feel lost not because they lack talent or intelligence, but because they’ve been cut off from meaningful frameworks that explain why struggle exists and what transformation asks of us. Ancient myth once served that role. My goal is to translate those archetypal truths into stories and conversations that speak to contemporary life—mental health, institutions, ambition, love, and awakening—without diluting their power.
I want readers and listeners to recognize themselves as protagonists rather than spectators. To see their setbacks as initiations, their confusion as part of descent, and their insight as responsibility—not ego. That shift changes how people relate to their own lives.
Ultimately, my mission is not to escape reality through fantasy, but to help people see reality more clearly. If someone walks away from my work feeling less broken, more oriented, and more conscious of the forces shaping them—then the work has done what it was meant to do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.therebornseries.com
- Instagram: @professorjaws
- Facebook: Justin A Williams
- Twitter: @dubzeverlasting
- Youtube: @mythmentalityvlog
Image Credits
Robbie Grayson