I’m not really as depressed as this journal entry is going to make me sound.

I used to be irritated by the idea that people owe something to society, that a citizen has a duty to produce, to contribute, to give something back. I once wrote a paper on Joseph Campbell and the “Hero’s Journey”. I was quite into the idea that the Hero is somehow outside of society and its norms, and that s/he can only find fulfillment by leaving society and setting out alone on the path of self-realization. It’s an idea I can relate to.

At the end of the Journey, however, the Hero has to return to society to bring back new-found knowledge and to give something back to the community that shaped him (or her). I wanted to ignore that part of the tale because it didn’t fit with my feelings towards the world. I liked the rejection of society bit, the lone wolf thing. I didn’t see why the Hero should have to return to a society that had made him an outsider before the Journey, and that wouldn’t understand him any better after he returned from the Journey.

A part of me still balks at the pull of society. But another part of me has realized that, unless you are a true misanthrope or hermit, you probably do need a society. We are indeed political creatures.

Self-fulfillment is all well and good, but if you’re sitting alone in your living room feeling self-fulfilled, where does that really get you? I am definitely something of a misanthrope, but even I have realized that sometimes keeping yourself company just isn’t enough. Maybe all roads of a journey have to lead back home, back to society.

The problem is: what if society doesn’t want you back after you’ve gone on your own Journey? What if society is perfectly happy without you and doesn’t need all your enlightenment? I get the feeling that society today doesn’t have time for enlightenment and wisdom. I think the desire to understand just complicates matters for everyone else.

So it seems that if you feel the call of the Journey, you have two choices. You can choose not to go on the Journey, but instead to go along with society. You can forego the quest for self-knowledge, and thus presumably magically become a contented and valued member of society.

Or you can go on a Journey. And then come back to find that life in your society is just fine without you, and that nobody really wants or needs all your wisdom. And you can sit there outside of society in your own little enlightened world. Alone.

Society has no time for myths these days. No time for “Heroes".