A few years ago, I bought a new bicycle because it looked cool. So cool that when I got it home, I decided it was too pretty to use outdoors. So I bought an indoor bike stand and ‘rigged ‘er up’ directly in front of my television. Whenever I want, I climb on, watch something interesting, and go on a journey in my imagination.
The other day while watching an interview with Joseph Campbell, the famous mythologist who died in 1987, I thought about his oft-repeated maxim, ‘Follow your bliss.’ Not long after I started peddling my retro-looking Raleigh, however, the crashing and banging of moving furniture in the upstairs apartment interrupted whatever bliss I was experiencing.
Joseph Campbell followed his bliss. His best-known work, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, published in 1949, lays out his theory of the archetypal hero’s journey shared by world mythologies. For Campbell, the hero’s journey is the template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis and comes home changed or transformed. George Lucas’s Star Wars films are based on Campbell’s work.
Campbell gained international attention after his interviews with the American journalist Bill Moyers aired on PBS in June 1988. The Power of Myth remains one of the most popular series in the history of American public television.
Trying to ignore the racket coming from upstairs, I turn up the volume on the TV and hear Campbell say: “The journey of the hero is about the courage to seek the depths; the image of creative rebirth; the eternal cycle of change within us.” The line hits home, and off I go in my imagination to 1975 and a story from my own hero’s journey.
I attended Concordia University and lived on Madison Avenue, a block below Sherbrooke Street in Montreal’s west end. Filled with Haitian immigrants, it was a terrific place to live. Except on that Friday, I thought as I tried to study for a big history exam the following day despite the booming Caribbean rhythms coming from the basement apartment directly under me.
After an hour of going back and forth in my head as to whether I should go bang on their door and tell them to smarten up, I decided I would. But then changed my mind. It was Friday night, after all.
But frustration got the best of me, and up I jumped, swung open the door and marched down the hall and then down the stairs mad as hell. Approaching the door, which I swear was vibrating from the heavy bass sound, made me even madder.
Resolute, I knock on the door. Nothing. Knocking again, this time louder, no response. Now, I’m really pissed. I just stand there fuming. After a few seconds, the door opens a crack. A few seconds later, it opens a little more. But it’s dark inside. I don’t see anything.
What the hell is going on?
Suddenly the door swings open, and there standing before me is a giant of a man adorned in a brightly coloured robe with gold and silver jewelry dangling around his neck. He looks like a Haitian God. I’m stunned. As impressive as all that is, it’s the foot-long ceremonial dagger clenched between his teeth that really grabs my attention. We just stare at each other.
Then, I notice a smile crease his face and realize all is well and that this is one colourful character; a person I can be friends with.
“Great music,” I tell him, smiling. “Can you turn it up?”
We’re all heroes, and we’re all on a journey, and every story on our journey carries us closer to our bliss. Sometimes it’s hard to see or believe that. But, if seeing ourselves as a hero as we journey through life transcending fear and overcoming obstacles was good enough for Joseph Campbell, it’s good enough for me.
