Just One Thing - Joseph Campbell

The Ten Thousand Things

“I have really found when I look around that the romantic love I see is this ideal, the anima. The anima is the ideal that you carry within yourself that you put onto the different entities out there and you unite with that. Pretty soon you see through the projection. And then what happens?”

Transcript:
That's Joseph Campbell from an interview he did. I won’t pretend to be an expert on what the anima is but I took note of this because it resonated with me. I can see that I've done this throughout my adult life. It's to project something, onto a woman in my case. And then basically have a relationship with that projection.

And there's an incredible high that comes from doing that. And they become perfected in your mind. And quite often I can take photos of women when I'm in this state, they will be sitting in a café or wherever, and it will be a particularly attractive photo of them. And quite often they get some kind of high out of it too.

But as Joseph Campbell says:

“Pretty soon you say through the projection. And then what happens?”

Well, in my case, what happens is I tend to end the relationship. And often the women are left hurt and confused about what went wrong.

And it reminds me of the Joni Mitchell quote about monogamy and how if all you ever have is short-term relationships and casual dating then basically, you’re just dating yourself over and over again. Telling the same stories, revealing the same small parts of yourself, and having the same fun.

Whereas to really go deep with someone and commit and really get into the complexities of getting to know someone is to have a much deeper experience. But I think that moves you past romantic love and chemistry and all the hedonism that's inherent in all those chemicals floating around. I think that moves you to something that maybe feels a lot more ordinary a lot of the time. That slow layering process of really getting to know one person.

And sitting here now I can see that that is an ideal for me. The problem I have is whenever I meet a new person, I tend to project my anima onto them and have the same relationship over and over again. I’m trying to get out of that trap and move onto hopefully something more profound.

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Sam here. This is part of an ongoing series from Joe, of short personal reflections on quotes found during reading, usually on spirituality, and psychology. Joe is writing at https://joeloh.substack.com

Joseph Campbell is also one of my go-to teachers. Not necessarily an authority on up to date folklore, but certainly someone who can open you up to new ideas and give you courage to face fears and challenges. Campbell has helped many people greatly with perhaps one the hardest things in life, to actually face our true purposes and choose to move towards lives of greater meaning and yes, love.

Reading about anima/animus, I found an interesting summary of Jung's four levels of Eros (erotic romantic love) associated with development/integration of the anima. Maturation of romantic love felt towards women, moves from:
1. Eve: desire, needs, nourishment, security and love
2. Helen: recognition of women's intelligence, competences and achievements in their own right
3. Mary: Righteous, paragon of virtue: recognition of women's moral accomplishments I would say
4: Sophia: finally recognising women as wise and fully human, *gasp*, equal, and not at all an object.

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I also found Maria Popova's wonderful article in the Marginalian, a great match with Joe's reflection today. Reviewing Pathways to Bliss, Campbell's book on love, purpose and reality, she also quotes Anais Nin, Zen teacher D.T Suzuki, Stendahl, Dan Savage and the poet Rilke. Popova offers a striking synthesis drawing on many sources, persuading us powerfully that embracing imperfection and compassion is the path to love and meaning. Joseph Campbell on Why Perfectionism Kills Love and the Pathway to Bliss in Romantic Relationships

Kindred Media has some powerful articles by Amy Wright Glenn, who works as a yoga teacher, doula and chaplain. Clearly she is someone who specialises in helping people at life's most difficult moments. She tells stories of love, grief, bliss and purpose.

"Much of our experience of love’s intensity is due to our search for the other part of our original selves. According to Aristophanes, no earthly joy can compare to this reunification."

I welcome the superb clarity she brings to Campbell's ideas and her own insight.

While it’s human nature to sort through stories for meaning, I agree with Campbell about the supremacy of experience over meaning... Feeling is primary. Fully feeling brings integration and is the key to healing life traumas. Meaning comes later, if at all.

Amy Wright Glenn in the same article, gives us a poignant outline of Campbell's notion of three kinds of love: Agape (universal sacred love), Eros (sexual), and Amor (romantic) with key observations about each. Highly recommended! https://kindredmedia.org/2015/03/joseph-campbell-love-and-follow-your-bliss/

Joseph John Campbell (March 26, 1904 – October 30, 1987) was an American writer. He was a professor of literature at Sarah Lawrence College who worked in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work covers many aspects of the human experience. Campbell's best-known work is his book The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949), in which he discusses his theory of the journey of the archetypal hero shared by world mythologies, termed the monomyth.

Since the publication of The Hero with a Thousand Faces, Campbell's theories have been applied by a wide variety of modern writers and artists. His philosophy has been summarized by his own often repeated phrase: "Follow your bliss."[6] He gained recognition in Hollywood when George Lucas credited Campbell's work as influencing his Star Wars saga.[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell

For more great quotesfrom Campbell https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell