03/29/2023
March 26th is the writer Joseph Campbell’s birthday. During the Great Depression, Campbell spent five years engaged in rigorous independent study in upstate New York after receiving his Master's degree. “I would divide the day into four three-hour periods, of which I would be reading in three of the three-hour periods, and free one of them ... I would get nine hours of sheer reading done a day." After this, he fulfilled a career as a comparative mythology and religion literature professor. Campbell wrote several successful works on mythology and folklore reflecting on the collective and interpersonal human experience framed through universal archetypical stories, namely the Hero Myth. He pulled inspiration from various sources, such as Carl Jung and eastern philosophy. You can view many of Campbell’s lectures online and read his works: The Power of Myth, Myths to Live by, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, and many more. As Campbell would say, “follow your bliss”!
