Happy Monday!

I hope you all are having a great start to the week! This week's Mishmash will be a little different, and rather than sharing a bunch of various topics, I am going a little more in-depth with one subject. I won't be doing this every week, but let me know what you think! Alright, let's get on with this week's Mishmash!

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🏔 The Hero's Journey

In college, I first discovered the topic of the Hero's Journey.

​Joseph Campbell, in his book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, discovers that many past stories and mythological folklore stem from a similar narrative structure called the monomyth. In the book, the monomyth is defined as:

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered, and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

The monomyth contains three chronological sections:

1. Departure
2. Initiation
3. Return

These three acts can be further subdivided into 17 stages, but the overall story arc is centered around the protagonist or the hero.

💡 There have been countless artists and storytellers influenced by this story structure, such as George Lucas for Star Wars, Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, Jerry Garcia from the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, and also helped in the creation of several Disney films such as Aladdin, The Lion King, and Beauty and the Beast.

It's surprising to see the vast amount of applications for this structure in such wide use of creative applications. This narrative structure is not necessarily a rule, but its vast usage indicates that creativity sometimes comes in the form of constraints.

🤔 So, why have people resonated with this narrative structure?

I believe this is mainly due to 3 main attributes I have experienced with this storyline:

Relatability - relation to the protagonist in some form or fashion, whether it be their personality, flaws, mindset, or interests

Realism - this storyline takes a non-perfect, "life-like" approach where the main character faces trials that involve situational and personal struggles (ex. their main trait of success was also their trait of failure)

Results - there are lessons to be learned from the journey, and those can be applied and remembered in future situations
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🎥 I want to end this short piece with a film by Tom Sachs and Van Neistat called The Hero's Journey.

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I stumbled across this video a couple of years ago and it came back on my radar as I was writing this short piece.

In this video, they go through the entire narrative structure of the Hero's Journey framed through a young professional looking to become an artist.

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And that’s it for the Monday Mishmash! Thank you for reading and see you next week for the upcoming edition! As always, if you enjoyed this, I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two. (They can sign up at this link or feel free to share this email.

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Thanks and have a great week!

-Ryan

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