From REFLECTIONS ON THE ART OF LIVING, A Joseph Campbell Companion, Selected and Edited by Diane K. Osbon
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are...
...Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy...
...When we talk about settling the world's problems, we're barking up the wrong tree. The world is perfect. It's a mess. It has always been a mess. We are not going to change it. Our job is to straighten out our own lives...
...We must be willing to give up the life we've planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us...
...If you are lifeworthy, you can take it...
...Awe is what moves us forward. As you proceed through life, following your own path, birds will shit on you. Don't bother to brush it off. Getting a comedic view of your situation gives you spiritual distance. Having a sense of humor saves you...
...Your real duty is to go away from the community to find your bliss. The society is the enemy when it imposes its structures on the individual...
...The heroic life is the individual adventure...
...It is by going down into the abyss that we recover the treasures of life. Where you stumble, there lies your treasure...
...The purpose of the journey is compassion...
...A wise man said, "Do not seek illumination unless you seek it as a man whose hair is on fire seeks a pond." If you want the whole thing, the god's will give it to you. But you must be ready for it...
...A bit of advice given to a young Native American on the day of his initiation: "As you go the way of life, you will see a great chasm. Jump. It is not as wide as you think."
Well, what do you think about that? (Get the book.)
More to come. The next book excerpted will be HOOKED, Write Fiction that grabs readers at page one and never lets them go, by Les Edgerton. After that, OLD FRIEND FROM FAR AWAY, The Practice of Writing Memoir by Natalie Goldberg. (Get them too.)
