Tales of the Jedi

I initially purchased my copy of Joseph Campbell's seminal work during my senior year of high school; not as part of any formal educational curriculum but on account of my personal interest in the book due to its reputation as a kind of Rosetta Stone for storytelling. As a fledgling short filmmaker at the time, I was intrigued by the encouraging word-of-mouth from certain luminaries in my anticipatory field.

In finally deciding to read the book straight through 18 years later, I did not interpret its multitudinous offerings as a sort of master key to aid my fiction writing as so many hungry writers have done before me. Rather, I simply surrendered to the enchanting beauty and majesty of the oldest stories our species has a record of. In vividly describing some of the most foundational myths and rituals of both the Oriental and Occidental tradition, the book is a breathtaking work of psychological archeology and absolutely worthy of its high regard among scholars and storytellers alike.

I must admit, however, that the boon of the ancient world presented here renders our modern but comparatively atomistic society rather primitive and lacking in the wisdom and vision of our forebearers; revealing our increasingly evident vulnerability to the ever-looming, cancerous forces of greed, ignorance, immorality and corruption. Above all, this remarkable survey of the past reminds us that the human story never changes. There are no pioneers. While some may stubbornly believe that their lived experiences can contend with the accrued lessons begot over thousands of generations, such embarrassing folly is sadly foretold by the mystics of a forgotten age.

In short, I think we should spend more time looking back.