The Hero's journey, in my opinion, is somewhat difficult to define thoroughly. I truly believe that every single one of us goes through at one point or another in our lives. It is taken by oneself. We all need to deal with death. Whether it be the death of a loved one, a favorite pet, a good friend, we also have to deal with death ourselves. I feel as though so many people are reluctant and choose to avoid discussing death. It makes them uncomfortable, or sad. This may come off as extremely morbid, and pardon me if it does, but I see absolutely nothing wrong or scary or harmful about the concept of death. In the words of my girl Sylvia Plath, “Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”
Most importantly we need to understand ourselves. It is nearly impossible to understand others if we do not understand ourselves first. This is hard. Figuring out who you are as a person at the ripe old age of eighteen seems a bit far fetched, and I certainly haven't pin pointed it yet. But having a cursory understanding of yourself is key. My hero's journey, as I'm sure many people are already posting about, is indeed, when I go off to college next Fall. I'm the youngest and I've barely made it out of New England. I'm going off to Upstate New York next year to study Public Relations and Advertising. I am going to be that guy (or girl, rather) that persuades you into buying useless shit. Holla. But anyway, by going into foreign territory, I'm hoping to truly find out who I really am. Living on my own, and being completely responsible for myself is going to be a new thing for me. It will be challenging, yes, but I'm ready.
That is my attempted definition of the Hero's journey. The End.
I love Sylvia Plath. “Remember, remember, this is now, and now, and now. Live it, feel it, cling to it. I want to become acutely aware of all I’ve taken for granted.” Holding on to life is more important when one has a firm grasp on the concept of death. If you look at classic examples of heroes and heroins, they understand the closeness of death, and by this understanding are able to fight with everything they have in order to preserve something of the greater good. For example, Batman is a hero without any special powers. However, through his drive to avenge the murder of his parents, essentially by the social decay of Gotham city, he fights with great power against the corruption of his home. This is his greater good: fixing corruption. Sylvia Plath knows her stuff.
ReplyDeleteWow Mariah, this is a good explanation of the Hero's Journey. I enjoy reading this, understanding it even. I agree that it is hard to closely define the journey of a hero because everyone has his own journey that will bring them to different paths and different experiences. And I agree that people should not be afraid of death. I am not as morbid as you (teehee) but I do think that death is something that every living organism on this world has in common, and because it happens thousands of times a day to thousands of people, it should be something that is embraced. It should definitely be mourned over and produce sad emotions, but overall it is something that happens to everyone and we should not stay fearful our whole lives waiting for it to happen. Also Mariah, your 2nd paragraph was good and my reading of it was a breeze.
ReplyDeleteI agree that to understand others we must first understand ourselves. This understanding comes in pieces, especially at our age, and sometimes it is difficult to process. However, I feel as though part of the self understanding comes with talking to others and discovering the similarities between you and a friend and applying them to your own life. The idea of death is not a morbid concept for me as well, and I also feel as though it is necessary to process in order to learn something about ourselves. It is the way of life for things to die, and thus ignoring it seems silly. I think that all of us are waiting for that time in the next years when we reach a better understanding. Ready or not, here we come.
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