The Hero’s Journey… we are all living it right now

“We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.”

Joseph Campbell

Someone has shared the documentary film “Finding Joe” on YouTube. It is a fantastic introduction to the life’s work of Joseph Campbell… who first articulated the common structure to mythological stories: The Hero’s Journey.

I don’t know how long it will be up… it is well worth a watch (I’m watching it up on my TV right now).

It is better to have a story to give meaning to what is happening in our lives than an explanation… because a story is richer… and gives meaning. What story are you telling yourself about Coronavirus? We can choose the story.

“If you bargain away your life for security, you will never find your bliss”

Joseph Campbell

The journey is a pattern of our our journey of growing up as human beings. We are called to adventure… and resist the call… until the right set of challenge, mentors, self belief comes into place… and we begin a journey of transformation > the journey from an unsatisfying life (lived in service of other’s values) to a fulfilling life (lived in service of a greater cause).

I’ve been reading the novel Jonathan Livingston Seagull with my 4 year old daughter over the last week… it is a hero journey… and it is prompting many interesting conversations with my daughter.

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The Hero’s Journey… 17 steps, 3 stages

Here is a previous post of mine that describes in detail the journey…

Here’s an old video of mine where I describe the 7 steps of the Hero Journey:

How to find Purpose and Self Belief: The Hero’s Journey

Joseph Campbell’s work has had a profound influence on me and on my life. The Hero’s Journey are the steps that a mythical hero must take in order to complete the path to their purpose.

There is no pain-free path… and it must be “chosen sacrifice” if it is to lead you towards self belief. You can’t just accumulate externally imposed suffering and hope… you have to decide to follow the path of the hero.

The Hero’s Journey

“The Hero With a Thousand Faces” is a journey through myths from all over the world. Myths are stories that have been handed down from generation to generation over hundreds and thousands of years. Joseph Campbell shares myths from the ancient Egyptians, the Romans, Hindu and Buddhist legends of the east, and the folk-tales and foundation myths of the indigenous peoples of the Americas.

The book explores common themes that define the world’s myths. While our cultures differ, they structure their stories in similar ways. This template is what is known as the hero’s journey. 

The 3 themes and the 17 specific steps along the Hero’s Journey are described below.

Call to Adverture

1. The call to adventure: Something, or someone, interrupts the hero’s familiar life to present a problem, threat, or opportunity.
2. Refusal of the call: Unwilling to step out of their comfort zone or face their fear, the hero initially hesitates to embark on this journey.
3. Supernatural aid: A mentor figure gives the hero the tools and inspiration they need to accept the call to adventure.
4. Crossing the threshold: The hero embarks on their quest.
5. Belly of the whale: The hero crosses the point of no return, and encounters their first major obstacle.

Trials of the Hero

6. The road of trials: The hero must go through a series of tests or ordeals to begin his transformation. Often, the hero fails at least one of these tests.
7. The meeting with the goddess: The hero meets one or more allies, who pick him up and help him continue his journey.
8. Woman as temptress: The hero is tempted to abandon or stray from his quest. Traditionally, this temptation is a love interest, but it can manifest itself in other forms as well, including fame or wealth.
9. Atonement with the father: The hero confronts the reason for his journey, facing his doubts and fears and the powers that rule his life. This is a major turning point in the story: every prior step has brought the hero here, and every step forward stems from this moment.
10. Apotheosis: As a result of this confrontation, the hero gains a profound understanding of their purpose or skill. Armed with this new ability, the hero prepares for the most difficult part of the adventure.
11. The ultimate boon: The hero achieves the goal he set out to accomplish, fulfilling the call that inspired his journey in the first place.

Return of the Hero

12. Refusal of the return: If the hero’s journey has been victorious, he may be reluctant to return to the ordinary world of his prior life.
13. The magic flight: The hero must escape with the object of his quest, evading those who would reclaim it.
14. Rescue from without: Mirroring the meeting with the goddess, the hero receives help from a guide or rescuer in order to make it home.
15. The crossing of the return threshold: The hero makes a successful return to the ordinary world.
16. Master of two worlds: We see the hero achieve a balance between who he was before his journey and who he is now. Often, this means balancing the material world with the spiritual enlightenment he’s gained.
17. Freedom to live: We leave the hero at peace with his life.

What is a Story?

This is a video from a few years back where I simplified the hero journey structure into 7 steps:

If you liked this post you will also like What is Mentorship? and Living a Purpose driven life.

What is a story?

At the very simplest, a story is:

  1. A character
  2. Who wants something
  3. Overcomes obstacles to get it

An epic story is

  1. A character
  2. Who wants something massive
  3. And is willing to risk everything to get it

The real depth of any story is not whether the character achieves the goal but who they become as they face the obstacles along the path.

Photo credit: umjanedoan

How to Develop a Story

From a writer’s perspective, a story has to first develop a character that we care about, and we wonder what will happen to them.  Donald Miller, in his book A Million Miles in a Hundred Steps says that the character must “save the cat”.  The character must do something charitable that shows there is a decent human inside.  Rocky always does 3-4 charitable things in the first 20 minutes of each film that follows the boxer.

Step 1: “Save the Cat” – our main character does something that gets us to love him

Once we care, then something has to happen to force the character to show their hand.  In real life, we don’t change unless we are changed by events.  In the words of Soren Kierkegaard “the only precursor to change is crisis”.

So story step number 2: a crisis.  Something that forces the character to commit to the goal. In Star Wars, Luke returns from the desert trip to find his aunt and uncle have been murdered by Imperial Stormtroopers.  He commits to travel with Obi-wan to space.

Step 2: The Inciting Event – something external kicks our loveable character off of the sofa

We are now on the journey.

Joseph Campbell speaks of this moment as the Portal to Adventure.  Often the character will have approached this portal a few times in the past, only to turn back at the last moment.  Something happens to push them over the edge.  It might be a mentor that says “things will be ok for you”.  It might be a love interest who says “do it for me!”  It might be a coincidence that the hero reads as divine message saying “it is you”.

The adventure begins.  Often a few easy victories give the hero (and the readers) a sense that this is going to work out well.

In an interesting story, there are positive turns and negative turns.  In Homer’s Odysseus, the hero makes amazing progress towards his home using the magic of the wind that the Gods gave to him in a bag.  Joy.  Progress.  Then, the crew open the bag to see if they can get home even quicker.  Opening the bag is a negative turn.  The uncontrolled wind escapes from the bag and blows the ship way, way, way back far, far, far away from home, even further than from where they had begun.

The positive turns allow us to keep the reader engaged and hopeful of the final outcome.

The negative turns allow us to develop the character of the hero.  Kurt Vonnegut says “Be a Sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them—in order that the reader may see what they are made of.”

Step 3: Positive Turns, Negative Turns

The trials and tribulations, hopes and dashed dreams continue for a while.  We are watching the hero gather resources, make friends, identify enemies, trust those that are not worthy of trust, disobey those that should really have been obeyed – make a mess out of easy situations, and just pull it together to make it through the difficult challenges.

Then, the novelty wears off and the hero realises that they don’t feel like they are making progress.  I am reminded of the feeling when I sail between the coast and an island.  When I set out from the shore of Australia to sail to the Whitsunday islands, at first the coast behind me got rapidly smaller – I felt like I was flying out to sea.  Then comes the interminable middle.  The coast is no longer shrinking, but the islands don’t seem to be getting any bigger.  All I know is that wave after wave is hitting my boat.  I stay in this state for hours.  Then, all of a sudden, the islands rapidly grow larger and larger.

In the interminable middle, the hero must find a way to overcome self doubt as well as the many obstacles that block the path to the goal.

We then reach a point of disillusion.  This is the point of abandon.  The hero is tired, has lost sight of the original goal, feels like they are making no progress.

The hero wants to give up.  It feels pointless to go on.

Again, in good story, we need an external cause that pushes the hero to one last push.  It might be a friend that reappears and supports.  It might be an evil enemy doing something that is double the despicable of anything he has done before.  It might be the loss of the hero’s closest ally.  It might be the death of the hero’s mentor (remember Obi-Wan sacrificing himself to Darth?).

The hero, this time without hope for themselves, having lost their own ego reason for taking up the original mission takes one last push – and this push is enough to break the deadlock of the interminable middle and open up the return home.

Step 4: Disillusionment and the Point of Abandon, The Final Push

The hero has achieved the original goal.  Prometheus achieves stealing fire from the Gods and returns to the world.  Luke and his allies blow up the Death Star with a last, final, spiritually enhanced missile (“just like shooting swamp rats back home!”).

The hero returns to his village, to those that knew him before his journey.

Sometimes the return is the most challenging.  The hero has become a very different person though the obstacles they have overcome, but their mother and father, their brothers and sisters still see the old version of the person.  It takes tremendous effort to get the old friends and family to see the new person and let go of the old person.

In a movie, we leave the cinema with a sense of closure, that a full cycle has finished.  In a book we finish with a sense that the universe has been restored to a new point of equilibrium.  In real life, we realise that this epic story is just a tiny sub-plot in a bigger and bigger story.  In real life, the meaning is not designed into the events by an author, it is we ourselves who must create the meaning that can fit the events of our lives and give us the feeling that it is worth waking up again and experiencing more tomorrow.

Step 5: The Return

This then, is a story:

Hero + Goal + Obstacles + Resources + Friends + Enemies + Learning and Growing to become the person that can succeed

 

Further Resources on Story

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