For those of you familiar with that statement, it's coiner needs no introduction. For those of you who might not be aware, it was made famous by Jospeh Campbell and the dictum that has come to encapsulate Campbell’s philosophy on life: “Follow your bliss.” Campbell was a professor, author, the foremost authority on world mythology and arguably, one of the last century's wisest men.
His seminal work on world mythology, The Hero With A Thousand Faces, was published in 1949 and his work has influenced academics and artists - George Lucas credits Campbell's work as playing a major influence on his Star Wars saga - but Campbell came to international prominence when a six-part series of conversations between himself and legendary interviewer, Bill Moyers (The Power Of Myth), was aired in 1987, a part of which was filmed at George Lucas' Skywalker Ranch in California.
The complete transcript of the tv series was published under the same name and has been described, rightly so, as nothing short of secular scripture — a trove of wisdom on the human experience in the canon of such rare masterworks as Thoreau’s "Journals", Simone Weil’s "Notebooks", Rilke’s "Letters To A Young Poet", and Annie Dillard’s "Pilgrim At Tinker Creek". (We highly recommend it!)
This is a bit of a long introduction into saying that, continuing the search for happiness from last weeks' blog post, we were curious what Joseph Campbell had to say about 'happiness'. Campbell felt that a person should pursue what makes them happy, without fear, and don’t let it go.
"The way to find out about happiness", Campbell said, "is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you are really happy - not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what is called following your bliss".
Most of us are familiar with the bliss experience. A rush of joy, a loss of time, then suddenly it ends. We’re snapped back into the reality of our daily lives. Of course, we can't live in a state of sheer bliss all the time. Our brain chemistry has finite supplies of dopamine, so yes, bliss is temporary. But the experiences of bliss are truly beautiful because they are temporary.
So, the secret to happiness and finding our bliss, we might conclude from Campbell's work, lies in an exercise simultaneously simple and complex: the simple act of paying attention to the moment.
#josephcampbell #billmoyers #bliss #happiness #myth #powerofmyth #georgelucas #starwars #lucasranch #philosophy
Comments