I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. – Joseph Campbell

In the early 20th century, while studying world mythology, Joseph Campbell discovered a pattern hidden in every story ever told and he called it “the heroes journey”. The heroes journey, or the monomyth, is the common template of stories that involve a hero who goes on an adventure, is victorious in a decisive crisis and comes home changed or transformed.

Joseph Campbell studied the classical myth traditions, native American mythology. He fell in love with it when he was a kid. He also studied Greek mythology, Arthurian legend, he dissected and really diagrammed all of our stories. He compared philosophies, mythic stories of the whole world. All myths, all movies all novels, all romances He found this one story within all the stories, that we can relate to, no matter where you come from. He recognized that in spite of all the different stories we seem to be telling, there is really only one. And He called it the Hero’s Journey.

“The snake that cannot shed its skin must perish.” Frederick Nietzsche