A Variety of Thoughts About Everything

What is the hero’s journey? The hero’s journey is a widely recognized storytelling pattern that has been used for centuries in literature and mythology. It is a framework that helps writers create compelling stories that resonate with their readers by depicting a protagonist who goes through a transformative journey. The journey usually involves a series of challenges that the  protagonist  must overcome in order to achieve their goal. The hero’s journey is also known as the  monomyth , a term coined by Joseph Campbell in his book  The Hero With a Thousand Faces . The  monomyth , or hero’s journey, is a storytelling pattern that transcends genres and time periods. It is a timeless concept that continues to be relevant today because it speaks to universal themes such as self-discovery, transformation, and growth. (Found at https://www.grammarly.com/blog/heros-journey/#:~:text=What%20are%20the%20steps%20of,and%20the%20freedom%20to%20live.) The Hero's Journey ...

 From the age of 8 onwards, after we had moved to the "big city" and discovered the magic of cable television, back during Christmas School break in 1971, I found this wonderful program called Star Trek. If you have been reading me for a while then you know that I wrote about that in an earlier post. After the show I discovered that there were books, written by real authors, set in this Universe and expanding on the Universe of Star Trek. I LOVED this!!! And one of the many ideas that they spoke about was Delight in the Other. Instead of Fearing people and beings that were not like yourself take Delight in them. Be curious about them. Explore with them while sharing yourself with them. In a place online I found this which I think really does represent what this means. It is as follows: "Infinate Diversity in Infinate Combinations represents a Vulcan belief that beauty, growth, and progress---all result from the union of the unlike. Concord, much as discord, requires the ...

 For as long as I can remember I felt different. And was told, many times, by people in "Authority", that what I was doing was wrong. I was either too loud, too emotional, too energetic, way overboard in everything that I did. I was told that I was wrong and needed to fit in. The whole world, it felt like, was telling me to conform to what they thought I should be. To Be Small. For many years I was a chameleon. I became whatever I thought you needed me to be. For two reasons. One, I wanted you to be happy with me so that you would not tell me that I was wrong. And two, I could manipulate you to get what I wanted from you. As a result I never developed a sense of My Self. Any sense of who I am as a Human Being. I was so busy being anyone else that I had no Identity of my own. No sense of my own Person as a Person. Now I do have a sense of My Self and who I am. It took a long time and a lot of work to get here, and I have not arrived. There is still work to do. I no longer twis...

 When I was young my Mum was active in her Political party's County organization where we lived. As a result I went to several local political events. I remember one where we were at a fundraising event for a candidate running for some state level office. I ask this candidate a question about one of the burning issues of the day. He gave a pretty extensive answer, which looking back was fairly nuanced, but which I got that this person agreed with me. And I felt good about this candidate. A while later I asked about another of the burning issues of the day. Another rather nuanced answer, in looking back, and what I got was disagreement. And I no longer felt good about this candidate. I was a child who saw everything in black and white terms, right or wrong. There was no nuance in my world view at all. And I was much more judgemental about where you were WRONG, in my view, than where you were RIGHT, in my view. Either we were on the same plane or you were WRONG. No wiggle room at all...

 When I was a child my Mum used to take me to a local Methodist Church. The people there were nice and Pastor Davis was a good man. What some would call a "Godly" man. I know today that many a time we ate because of that church and many a Christmas was made better because of that church. And throughout my "adult" life many people have tried to convince me that this "God" of theirs existed. Good people. And convinced that I "needed" to find this God. At 25, almost 26, years clean and practicing a program of Recovery in Narcotics Anonymous I still have people telling me that I MUST find God as this is a "God Given" program and I will certainly use again sooner or later if I do not. And today I find that amusing. When I was younger and for many years into my adulting I was confused. Because this God you all have created never made any sense to me what so ever. Not once. Maybe I was ruined to the idea of this God because I read Mythology fr...

 For a big chunk of my life I was a reactionary. I do not mean that in the political sense. I mean that in the sense that their was very little in my life that happened that I was not already preprogrammed to have a specific response too. And my reactions were not a good idea usually. I do not know if you can understand this, there were times that I knew that I was reacting, badly, that this was not a good idea at all, it was really bad, and I could not do anything different no matter how much I really thought that doing almost anything else would be a better idea. Most of the time I never thought about any of it. It was a button pushed and a reaction happened. No thinking involved. That was my life with very few exceptions for a long time. Finally, in my mid thirties, I started, slowly and with many reversions and backsteps, to grow up. I learned, and am still learning, to respond instead of react. It is a lifelong journey. Along the way I had to learn what I was reacting to. And,...