While interviewing Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers said, "We tell stories to try to come to terms with the world, to harmonize our lives with reality...Myths are stories of our search through the ages for truth, for meaning, for significance. We all need to tell our story and to understand our story. We all need to understand death and to cope with death, and we all need help in our passages from birth to life and then to death. We need for life to signify, to touch the eternal, to understand the mysterious, to find our who we are."
In this, Moyers is talking of a hero's journey.We all have our own journey in life, some more complex and life-altering than others. It is in this journey that we come to evaluate our place in the world and the things we hold dear. As seniors less than two weeks from graduation, we are at the end of one journey, and the beginning of another.
For me, my way of "coming to terms with the world" has always been through writing, reading, and listening to music. A jumbled mess of feelings can be straightened out as a pen hits a page of a notebook and the words flow, a character in a novel suffers a similar fate, or a lyric evokes an emotion I had been holding back. Through this I can process my own journey, understand complex ideas such as love and death, and reach a point of clarity about my own character. My journey has been one that has brought me to a sense of self-understanding, one that will help me as I face my next journey: college and the real world.
Moyers claims that in order to process the world and its mysteries, we as people must act together, and this act of unity will lead us to the end of our journey. While I agree that there are instances where a helping hand or an insightful input would aid in my path to understanding, I feel that some people, especially as a product of their individual life, may benefit more from a solo experience. I do not see myself as a hero, simply a person on one path, not predetermined by some higher power such as God or Fate, but a path that I have the ability to control. My actions determine how my life will turn out, and while I have benefited from the help of others: my parents, teachers, and friends, ultimately I am responsible for my own journey. So maybe, in the end, we all have a little bit of a hero deep down, waiting to surface at the appropriate time. Only time will tell.
As a believer in fate, I do not completely agree with the idea that there is no such thing as fate. However I do understand how you are able to control the path your life goes down. I could not agree more with your statement "My actions determine how my life will turn out, and while I have benefited from the help of others; my parents, teachers, and friends, ultimately I am responsible for my own journey". Only you can solely be responsible for your own journey.
ReplyDeleteI agree that some people enjoy a more solitary existence, but I am not sure anyone truly benefits from a solo experience. As humans we are creatures that interact a lot. When a person is alone for too long they begin to change. Sometimes to even going mad. A helping hand is necessary for a human’s survival form birth to death. As one goes through life one neglects to think about all the daily contact one makes and the necessity of the interactions, especially if a society wishes to advance. One also forgets that it is only by those around one that enables one to achieve all that one has. Life alone is no life at all.
ReplyDeleteAs you state "A jumbled mess of feelings can be straightened out as a pen hits a page of a notebook and the words flow ... or a lyric evokes an emotion I had been holding back." I can relate to your interpretation of this quotation. Your words bring me back to bio class, during which we filled pages and pages of a note book with song lyrics. We wrote lyrics that pertained to our lives, ones we related to, one that helped us survive lectures, or simply lyrics that we had stuck in our heads.
ReplyDeleteSong lyrics, and other quotations, have always been part of our friendship, our lives. We express our feelings to each other through these mediums, or we make song playlists, with the same purpose. We are going out in to the world, attending college, and facing all sorts of scary new stuff. And as you say, a lot of it will be a solo experience, and we'll have to figure things on our own. But I also know that we will be doing it side-by-side. We shall be there for each other with stories to get through hard times, and with lyrics to process existence.
This is wonderful writing Megan! I can not agree with you more when you say listening to music is a way to come to terms with the world. Without music I don't know what I would do.. It helps me define my emotions, which further progresses my charcacter during our life's journey, and like you said, these forms of creativity and expressiveness will help us through our next chapter: College. However, I do believe in God and that he has set a general path for my life to follow. I like this though because I like the direction my life is taking and I feel I have God to thank for the many privileges my journey has and will give me.
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