Follow Your Bliss

Posted on by radicalrambler

Watching Joseph Campbell on television in the 80s was bewitching, he spoke with conviction, great animation and with a lively sparkle in his eye.  At the time I was also captivated by the writings of Jung and Robertson Davies.  And for a time at least Joseph Campbell was, for me, a shamanistic hero.  I have since returned to those interviews and have found them less than compelling; more showman than shaman. But one phrase he used struck me now as it did then, and that was – “follow your bliss.”

It was that idea of following my bliss that resulted in me leaving a dull and unimaginative banking job, selling up and moving to Liverpool.   Well dreams rarely do come true and, like Campbell’s typical mythological hero, there were trials and ordeals to pass through before I could achieve my bliss, and in ways that I could not have anticipated.

Most Saturdays you would find me here – The Picton Reading Room, surrounded by books, beautiful, beautiful books.

Bliss - Picton Reading Room, Central Library, Liverpool
Bliss – Picton Reading Room, Central Library, Liverpool

And ask me now if I have found my Bliss, I think I would answer it’s not so much a destination as a journey.  I’m still following it but this will do for now.

Published by radicalrambler

14 thoughts on “Follow Your Bliss”

      1. I’m always curious about other photographers’ and bloggers’ creative process, of not trying to force it but rather to let it happen. I should have more faith in that.

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      2. I’ve just done the blogging101 course and some days did not complete the assignments. I have several drafts still sitting there saying “I don’t know what to write about”. Sometimes it comes just by writing something.

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      3. I also didn’t complete assignments in the blogging 101. Sometimes all I have is a title of a post and nothing else. I found that by writing long hand, the words came easily. Not so with just opening the editor and typing.

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    1. I think he’s fallen out of fashion and his reading of myths is open to criticism but I still love his ideas about mythical heroes and the imaginative interplay between the ancient myths and our own lives

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  5. Terrific–you’ve cracked the Zen of Campbell’s most compelling statement! I applaud your decision and can relate–oh, the books, the books, the books! If we learn nothing else, the Hero With 1000 Faces shows us that it IS the journey, not the destination.

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