Joseph Campbell

I want to give just a few quick thoughts about The Power of Myth, the series of television interviews that the late Joseph Campbell did with Bill Moyers. Campbell spent his life visiting different cultures, admiring the cultures that bring out the best in humanity, and expressing concern about cultures and religions that drag us down and bring fear and guilt. However, I find it fascinating that he saw all of that, and yet still seemed to be saying that we need to be better about how we live – that is, if we did this and this, instead of that and that, we’d be better off. And I fall into that trap everyday. It’s very hard to break free from this business that, somehow, if there’s pain in our life, we must be doing something wrong, and that if we would just make better choices, we wouldn’t have to go through this pain. That’s very erroneous, because pain is part of the journey. And whether we’re reading self-help books or taking medication or going through psychoanalysis, we’re still carrying around this burden of responsibility, the notion that we’re supposed to be doing something. And I’d like us to look at that, one of those subjects that we come back to at various times from different angles, not so that people are sick of it, but so their concept gets deeper and broader each time. I think that could be helpful to a lot of people.