I'm off this morning to Santa Barbara, to spend another few days doing research in the Joseph Campbell materials held by Opus Archives . I'm looking for insight into Campbell's notion of bliss, and the relationship between the hero's journey and the difficult trials associated with such a journey, bliss, and other objects of a quest (love or beauty, for example). Campbell believed that myths and stories are useful tools for understanding life and he believed that people today live, for probably the first time in human history, in societies that don't have a governing mythology. I disagree with Campbell on this last point.I think our mythology merely appears in different disguises; it's not always associated with "religion" in the traditional sense but is cloaked as self-help or economics or science.
Wherever you find it, the search for mythology and myth making is important for each of us as individuals, to find and create meaning and purpose for life, and to liberate ourselves from invisible ideas and dogmatic beliefs that govern our lives and determine reality to a large extent. We need a better story, a new mythos, a "healing fiction" as James Hillman says, to find a more beautiful, just, and sustainable way of life. I think the useful myths of today will point us toward paradoxes and help us struggle with the tensions that ring through modern life. Campbell said, "Follow your bliss." He also said, "Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world." These words inspire and puzzle an often despairing idealist like myself. So off I go and I'll share my discoveries with you in the coming months.
