What is the Hero's Journey?: Pat Soloman at TEDxRockCreekPark

this thing working oh yeah what is the hero's journey and why is it important well the quick academic answer I'll get to the fun answer in a minute I promise is in the early part of the 20th century there was a guy named Joseph Campbell and he was studying myths and legends and stories from all over the world and he started noticing something similar in all these stories and what he noticed was that heroines and heroes from every time period were taking more or less the same journey and he called this the hero's journey it's a it's a circular pattern it's got three basic parts separation initiation and return he went on to fill in that circle with many more points of detail but for our talk we'll just stick to the basics a heroine or hero starts off in their village or subdivision or office cubicle they get separated from it sometimes they get lost sometimes they get kicked out sometimes Laurence Fishburne shows up and says you can take the red pill or you could take the blue pill anyway it goes this person is now on an adventure whether they like it or not the adventure is full of challenges typically there's a helper that comes to guide them along the way they get magical powers or maybe they get a magic weapon they struggle but finally evil is vanquished the dragon is slay the death star explodes the hero has been initiated from average person to hero person but that's not the end of it then they have to return to the village to share the treasure and sometimes they're just happy to be alive when they get back a good example of this is the Wizard of Oz Dorothy is living an average farm life but deep down she is wishing for something more something over the rainbow getting her wish a giant tornado comes and picks up her house and she's deposited in the Land of Oz The Good Witch of the North comes to greet her with what's known as a call to adventure she says okay Dorothy if you want to make it home follow this yellow brick road and go find The Wizard of Oz and so Dorothy goes on the classic quintessential journey she meets helpers that aid her on her journey she gets some magic slippers she struggles and almost dies many times but finally they find the Wizard only to discover he's a fraud some dude from Omaha believe so but but it doesn't matter because the trials of the journey have initiated her from farm girl to hero girl she realizes that what she was looking for she had inside her the whole time so she only has to click her heels together to return home separation initiation return ah so that's the basic and that's great and you can go see this pattern develop in any movie that you would watch but but so what well here's where it gets fun because it turns out that the adventures and misadventures of your life follow the same pattern see stories are essentially the same in this way because they all come from the same place they all come from in here they all come from humans and humans whether living in the pyramid 3,000 years ago or in a trailer park right now we all fear and desire the same things we all fear judgment pain and death we all desire love and happiness what you see when you watch a movie is your own hopes dreams and fears chasing each other around in the form of good guys and bad guys causing drama resolving conflict just like life why else would you sit in a dark Theater mindlessly shoveling popcorn into your piehole I Will Ferrell he's funny why well to quote my friend Alan Cohen we are not separate from the characters we see in our movies and in our novels they are us it's one journey and if it's all one journey then that makes you a hero you are the hero of your own journey I don't mean hero like you're going to save the Earth from aliens or you're going to rescue school children from a burning building I mean hero like in the day to day living of your life do you live with fear or do you live with courage and compassion now Campbell went on a made a remarkable correlation between the hero's journey and the living of your life and he gives this advice to his students you've probably heard it many times follow your bliss do that thing that fills you with the most joy and do it no matter what that is the starting place for a real life hero's journey we'll use a well documented an easy example Steve Jobs Steve Jobs went on the same journey as the Grail Knights the Knights looking for the Holy Grail he followed his bliss into the forests of Silicon Valley there was no path he blazed his own trail as he traveled miracles of coincidences manifested as well as epic disasters that he had to overcome but finally finally he gets the Grail and returned to share it with all of us thank God because I don't know what I would do without this thing if you have a touchscreen smartphone you know what I'm talking about okay so yeah we're not Steve Jobs and we're not Oprah or we might not be a big shots doing big things but we are all Dorothy and we are all the Grail Knights whether you are raising a family or starting a business or teaching children or saving the world from another zombie apocalypse the journey is the same so the hero's journey is kind of like a road map you can see what the path looks like and so you can see where you are on the cycle did you answer the call to adventure are you following your bliss all of my personal journeys illustrate this point fact the journey that takes me to right here this moment is a perfect example not that many years ago I was stuck in a village called midlife crisis it's a horrible horrible village full of plenty of cliches they're all true idiot and in the midst of all this both of my parents died suddenly my mom's was was the worst it was a misdiagnosis all sir - still bitter pill to swallow and after after we buried them an interesting thing happened I think I think the pain of that experience woke me up and I woke up the next day and I went what am i doing in this village this place is horrible I got to get out of here I realized where I was and I realized that I had better get back to following my bliss before it was too late I was and still am a commercial filmmaker I make commercials but I had secretly for many years been wanting to make this movie about Joseph Campbell's ideas but I just I didn't have the courage I guess I didn't I was too afraid I was going to fail I was too caught up on my own issues and so like a Grail night I went into the forest of the unknown to make this movie actually I'm half-japanese I see myself more like a Grail ninja than an actual Knight and the second I started down that road miracles of coincidences manifested and one amazing person led me to another amazing opportunity and not to say that it wasn't without hardships you know it was it was brutal I had almost quit several times but I finally finished this film but if we look at the journey I started in the village of general stupidity I followed my bliss out looking for the Grail of a completed film about the hero's journey I went on a hero's journey to make a film about the hero's journey having discovered a completed film I found myself to be a better filmmaker than I thought I was despite the comments of a few bitter old critics and I finished the film and returned to share it with the village separation initiation return what is the hero's journey the hero's journey is in the most sincere way possible the journey of your life did you answer the call are you following your bliss you

Channel: TEDx Talks

Views: 239,108

Rating: 4.7568831 out of 5

Keywords: TEDxRockCreekPark, English, tedx talks, tedx talk, TEDxRCP, Challenge, United States, Learning, Social Change, ted talk, ted x, Personal Development, tedx, ted, ted talks, Possibility, Film

Id: x8XUVqjX_IA

Length: 10min 59sec (659 seconds)

Published: Sat May 11 2013

Reddit Comments

[u/wazzym]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAY60dY-irY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RPKzF2tFgfs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hhk4N9A0oCA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWKKRbw-e4U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVqT8s7bOTQ

[u/wazzym]

There is a major flaw in this lecture. Campbell said that the hero becomes a hero by making a great sacrifice for others. The hero does not get rich. The hero takes the hit so that others may benefit.

Steve Jobs is not a hero. He got rich. He sacrificed nothing. Soloman missed the main point of "The Hero With A Thousand Faces" ( Campbells book ).