Sensational or Sensuous?
Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey Theory holds true
Do you go for the big outstanding amazing experience or would you just like a little slice of pie, please?
It was a slow Monday yesterday in the office so my husband, business partner, and love of my life (he wears so many hats) and I wandered over to the local theater to see Avatar.
The Oscars were handed out the night before and (thank God) James Cameron did NOT win for best director, nor did the movie win best picture.
But that love fest aside, and I really did put my ‘tude about Mr. Cameron aside to watch it, I still give it a big thumbs down. It was just the same ole, same ole story to me, and all the bugs and creatures and waterfalls and high branch tree walking gave me the creeps.
Skip gave it a thumbs up.
It’s interesting to me how different venues entertain and enlighten each of us.
I wrote a piece once in college about a Halloween night when a young mother had an evening class at the University she needed to attend, so her husband took their 3 little kids trick or treating and when she came home late, she pulled their baby boy from where he was sleeping in his crib and breastfed him, sitting in the dark room where the tree branch shadows moved around the moonlit room, enjoying the baby’s warmth and tickling little fingers against her breasts as he emptied their fullness.
The professor thought the paper stood out enough that he chose to read it to the class and defended it when a couple male students in the room couldn’t wrap their heads around it.
“What was it about?” they asked.
“Nothing happened,” they complained.
Years later and apparently I’m the same creature. I enjoyed discovering a new market in town we stopped at after the movie more than the movie.
The colors of the fresh, organic produce in this place were a delight and I couldn’t help myself from turning down the aisles, one after the other and skirting the perimeter to take it all in. Food and freshness and this can become that…….

Beautiful colors and textures!
I’m not a science fiction type. I couldn’t be more earthy and homey. Give me a little story. I want to know about people. One on one really. Family. Lovers. Relationships. Marriage. Sisters. Children.
An epic is okay. I’ll sit through it. Special effects? Honestly? A yawn for me. But a kitchen decorated tastefully? Beautiful wood floors and a garden in back? I’m all over it. My feet tingle.
And this got me thinking – try to stay with me here – that there are all kinds of categories on Jeopardy. And yes, I jump from colorful produce to Jeopardy as effortlessly as Jake pranced around on those vine covered tree limbs.
But, back to those Jeopardy categories…
There’s Poetry as well as Politics. Geology as well as Food. Literature as well as Sports. Ballet as well as TV sitcoms. Some contestants make a clean sweep of a column intuitively while others stand there openmouthed with their buzzer dangling. Yet, they come alive on another.
Is one category of knowledge more important or worthy than another?
No my little Einsteins!
Go for what, and pursue what, and be okay with what you prefer. It’s saying something to you. Work with it. Embrace it.
And try not to look down your intellectual or aesthetic nose at what you don’t enjoy as much.









