We need a hero

In the year of our lord, nineteen hundred and forty-nine, Joseph Campbell blessed writers and storytellers everywhere with the concept of the monomyth.

The monomyth, aka, the hero’s journey, was, he said, the only story that ever existed. Every single story ever written is, in fact the same story, just told in a slightly different way.

Campbell’s insight, which he published in delightfully old-timey prose in 1949, surfaced a concept that seemed true right down to our DNA. That stories are not only fundamental to human existence, but there is a particular way to tell a story that makes it feel oh so right.

As I sit here writing, hunkered down through the icy tundra that is a midwestern February, I am only half surprised to hear the familiar musical strains of an Avengers movie. Apparently, my son and I are, if only in spirit, on the same page.

Take any story, any of the Avengers perhaps, or the original Star Wars, if you like, which George Lucas created specifically with the ideas from Campbell’s works, and you will see a familiar pattern. Specifically, you will see a cycle.

The main character is faced with an impossible task, which can only be accomplished through radical personal transformation into a true hero. This character often receives (sometimes magical) help from other sidekick characters during their journey. Once they have transformed into the hero and completed the impossible task, they return back to their starting point, often their home. At home, they bring back wisdom or gifts from their against-all-odds journey.

Pause and consider your favorite movie or novel or story and you will suddenly see that all of the elements are there.

This circular pattern can re-emerge in further stories of the same character (did somebody say SEQUAL?), each telling of the hero’s journey resulting in the same pattern.

Stories are fundamental to culture, and all stories are based on the one true “monomyth”. This monomyth feels so good right down to our bones, it begs the question, could our ancient ancestors be trying to tell us something important? Namely, could they be communicating, through the sands of time, that any time our reality doesn’t match up with the epic truth of the hero’s journey, it is time to take a good long look?

One of my favorite bits of the hero’s journey is the classic moment named: “the refusal of the call”. In this bit, our would-be hero understands that something is wrong, but isn’t interested in doing a damned thing about it. They have received a “call to adventure” but shoot it down. It takes something irreversible to actually set them on the road to hero-dom.

In my own life, I have heard the call of many things, writing, being one of them, and have made many excuses for my own unwillingness to begin what seemed like a pointless journey. It’s too difficult. It would take too much time. It requires energy that I don’t have. I was ready with excuses, and quick to refuse the call each and every time it came knocking.

But, none of these excuses ever sat so well.

One day, I decided that, no matter how badly, I would begin writing. I would begin making art. I would finally head the call. To no one’s surprise, I was horrible.

But to my own amazement, learning opportunities suddenly began to show themselves. After a few years of hammering away at my keyboard, I wouldn’t say that I have made much progress around the wheel of the monomyth, but the feeling of un-ease has dissipated. That deep sense of alignment our ancestors were showing us in ancient stories had real weight.

Which brings me to my next and possibly more uncomfortable insight about the fundamental truth embedded in the monomyth. Today, as likely always has been the case throughout history, there are many who would set themselves up as heroes without first undergoing the difficult task of self-transformation.

We do this sort of thing all of the time when we power through things that don’t truly align with the highest version of ourselves. I did it for 20 years in the wrong career and burnt out from trying to force my way through life.

As incongruent as it feels when we, as individuals continue to refuse our call, when people in positions of power skip this bit, it can be hugely consequential. Because the longer anyone refuses this call, the more force they must use to slog through their life. The longer anyone puts off self-transformation, the greater the pain and bitterness, the more the tendency to look for someone or something to blame.

Eventually, there will be no one left to blame, because, when wielding incredible power without the benefit of the hero’s journey, it is easy to transform into a tyrant. It’s easy to clear from the face of the earth that which you believe to be wrong. It’s easy to become Darth Vader or Adolf Hitler.  In not choosing inner transformation, every tyrant sows the seeds of their own destruction.

The more I think about this, the more I know, deep down, that the “call to adventure” for any would-be hero is actually the call to do the work of their life. It is the call to step onto the path, not of least resistance but of their greatest expression. And while it is indeed terribly difficult to step out onto an unknown path, is it any less difficult to force and blame?

The great monomyth, honed over countless fires, written in untold sheaths of papyrus and pages of books, and carved into stone, we know there lies the truth. We feel upset when watching the world around us, and how it does not match up to the truth encoded in our very genome. We wonder if, in our reality, we might ever see heroes in our own leaders and public figures.

But then it hit me. The heroes will never be found in the people on the news or among the influencers. The heroes are as of yet just ordinary people, looking at the world, wondering, with fear and trepidation if now is the right time to accept the call to adventure.