JOSEPH CAMPBELL – WHAT HE KNEW

Perfection isn’t human. Human beings are not perfect. What evokes our love–and I mean love, not lust–is the imperfection of the human being. So, when the imperfection of the real person peaks through, say, ‘This is a challenge to my compassion.’ Then make a try, and something might begin to get going.

 

                         Joseph  Campbell is one of my heroes.

                          Also, he wrote about the hero’s path –

 THE HERO WITH 1000 FACES

 

 

• As Freud has shown, blunders are not the merest chance. They are the result of suppressed desires and conflicts. They are ripples on the surface of life, produced by unsuspected springs. And these may be very deep – as deep as the soul itself. The blunder may amount to the opening of a destiny.

  Campbell also wrote:  “Where you stumble and fall, there you will find gold.”

  ***

  Find a place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.

• The hero’s journey always begins with the call. One way or another, a guide must come to say, ‘Look, you’re in Sleepy Land. Wake. Come on a trip. There is a whole aspect of your consciousness, your being, that’s not been touched. So you’re at home here? Well, there’s not enough of you there.’ And so it starts.

•                                    ***

THIS short first article is just the beginning of my study of this remarkable, heroic man.

For you,  perhaps his words will be THE CALL.

 

 

 

(C) 2017  by William G. Milne – assembled

PART 1 of 2