“Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone,  for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world.”

– Joseph Campbell

A hero is, to me, someone who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself. A hero does not have to be brave or strong, or die in the pursuit of glory. There is the physical hero, who performs a courageous act in battle or life to save another being. The other kind of of heroic deed is the spiritual deed, in which the hero learns to experience the  range of human spiritual life, and then comes back with a message.

Campbell writes that everyone is a hero at birth, where he or she goes through the the tremendous physical and psychological transformation,  from a water creature swimming in amniotic fluid into an air-breathing mammal. The mother is a hero also, she brought this all about.

But in our culture, it is often considered more heroic to make a lot of money than it is to birth a child or love one.

In the creative realm, I believe a hero is one who travels to the center of his or her own existence in search of themselves.

Where we had thought to be alone, we are with all of the world. Where we sought to slay our enemies, we find that our greatest enemy is ourselves, we often  have to shed a self, maybe more than one, to discover the true self.

Few people want to make the trip, it is painful and long.

Those who do, are heroes, they have given their lives to something bigger than themselves, something outside of themselves.

That is heroic, it is the story of creativity and self-awareness.