Day 10: Identify where you are in the hero’s journey. You can take it in the context of your entire life, or within the context of a certain phase of life.
It’s a thing to witness to see Joe Campbell keep coming up. I think I first encountered his ideas at exactly the right time in my life. 16 or 17. It’s an odd coincidence too that they rebroadcast the Moyers interviews recently. I watched probably 4 of the 6 or so episodes. As a teenager, you barely comprehend the bulk of what you are hearing. The language makes sense, but the ideas are based on experiences of old men and cultures long dead. They have already trod the path you are about to step out on, but their attempt to light the way is muffled and hard to grasp. Its like lying in the tent when you’re camping, listening to adults out sitting around the fire. You only catch a handful of words and phrases. Sitting at the kitchen table with multiple generations. Talk of people long dead. Events that happened decades before you were born. Before you knew what a decade really feels like.
So, here I am, maybe a little beyond the halfway point. A few years out yet from Dante’s middle years by the feel of it.
Odd, but I can’t say that I’ve really taken the path laid out in the Hero’s Schematic. I never had a mentor. I’ve never felt I’ve encountered any sort of dragon or trial by fire whos completion grants me the boons.
I like those stories, but I don’t hear the call. I hear silence.
Oddly enough though, I do feel a bit enlightened. I’ve felt it for more than a decade now, and it sustains me. I’m free from the worry that most of humanity seems to be plagued with. I retain the mundane worries of immediate concern, money, health etc. But I’m not troubled by the big one. I reflect on it. I have the same sense of wonder, but not a worry about any of it. At least I don’t worry that my actions, inactions or worries will affect any of it.
It just is, and I am I, and I don’t bother myself with it.
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