The greatest advisor I've had in this quest of life and beyond has been Joseph Campbell, whose quote is listed above. Campbell spent a lifetime exploring the world's religions and especially their myths, and his work is among the most fascinating and inspiring you will ever read. Well at least it is for me anyway

Campbell's entire philosophy is best summed up by his advice to his students to "Follow Your Bliss." Campbell believed that the heaven many religions seek in an afterlife is actually happening right here and right now on earth, and that by following the "bliss" and intuition inside of us, wonderful, rapturous adventures are there for the taking. I've certainly found this to be true in my own life as I enjoy various spiritual beliefs ranging from Native American Spirituality to Buddhism to my personal interpetations of the laws of attraction. Campbell described this adventure in life through something called the "Hero's Journey" which is a series of steps people move through on the course of their own adventure.


If you would like to share your understanding of "Bliss" then please do.

The smile on a child's face to me is bliss. The short moment when the eyes light up like stars.

I believe that Campbell was right. To follow your dream is the purpose of life. It is truly unfortunate that so many children are discouraged from following their dream. Parents often tell their children that they can be anything they want. When the child says that they would like to become a great artist, or singer or movie star, the parent often says, "Don't be silly. Choose something practical." The child is made to feel that their dream is unrealistic and unapproved by their very own parents. It's truly sad.

It's far better to allow a child to follow their dream wherever it may lead. It may not lead to where they had first imagined, but that's totally unimportant. The only important thing is that they follow their dream. Once they have been side-tracked from their dream in favor of pragmatism it's almost impossible to ever regain the original enthusiasm of the original dream. It's been shattered forever.

The thing that is truly stupid is that the pragmatism would take care of itself automatically. There's truly no need to preach pragmatism. That would be like preaching to people that they need to breath.

I truly believe that the main reason why the youth today are so complacent about life is that they have been born into a society where dreams are laughed at as being totally unrealistic. Humanity created that mindset. It doesn't need to be this way. It's only this way because this is the way we've made it.

Of course, this isn't true across the board, but unfortunately it's try for the bulk of the masses.

In fact the very popular godforsaken Mediterranean mythology that is taught to many children is highly responsible for this mindset. Children are taught that it's vain to want to do your own thing. Even sinful and wrong. Children are taught that there is an invisible God who has plans for them and that they should behave themselves and wait for this God to guide them. But he never does because he doesn't exist in that form. In the meantime the Church does all it can to instill feelings of guilt for any natural desires the child might possibly have. Ironically it's a religion that suppresses the spirit. It does precisely the opposite of what religion is supposed to do. That religion is a major reason that our society has become so spiritually degenerate.

It truly is both sad and insane.

One can only hope that such negative upbringings will seize to exist in the future so children who have dreams can actually live them without restraint from parents or societies telling them otherwise.

It is truly sad when one doesn't believe in a child's dreams.

Here are further studies of Professor Joseph Campbell I share on the general religion chat if you like to read.

http://mingle2.com/topic/show/188536