Reply #104: My brother read Hero in high school...

[davekriss]

I think it was his junior year when he had to read Hero with a Thousand Faces. It is his worn copy I have on my shelf, along with the volumes of the Masks of God and other books. "Follow your bliss!", Joseph advised...

If you do follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while waiting for you, and the life you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in the field of your bliss, and they open the doors to you.

I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.

-- Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth with Bill Moyers, "Bliss and Sacrifice"

Joseph Campbell gave a series of lectures at my university when I was an undergrad which I had the priviledge of attending. Along with Gary Snyder (who read poetry at my school around the same time), Joseph Campbell is amongst the most enlightened beings I've ever met. You saw it in the glee of his eyes; in the delight of his voice! It was an honor and a joy to listen to him.