who is our “Hero”?

“Only birth can conquer death — the birth, not of the old thing again, but of something new…there must be — if we are to experience long survival — a continuous “recurrence of birth to nullify the unremitting recurrences of death.” — Joseph Campbell

In “The Hero With a Thousand Faces” Dr. Campbell writes “The stages of a human development are the same today as they were in the ancient times”. they include;

• Childhood ( Passage) — a child brought up in a world of discipline, of obedience, and of his dependency on others, has to be transcended. In the case of the hero he goes forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder:
• Maturity ( Initiation) — comes to maturity so that you are living now not in dependency but with self-responsible authority. Fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won:
• Autumn-time of life ( Return ) — from maturity and full capacity to losing those powers and acquiescing in the natural course of, you might say, the autumn-time of life and the passage away. The hero comes back from his mysterious adventure with the power to bestow “boons on his fellow man.”

According to Dr. Campbell myths are there to help us “go with it”, accept nature’s way and not hold to something else. We are in great need of a myth to “help us go with it”! We need a hero well into the maturity phase!

We need our hero to conquer the death that is our politics and maybe even our political system and provide a recurrence of birth so we can experience long survival from our current malaise.

I don’t know who the hero will be but I have an example of who he/she might strive to be: