The Hero's Journey and Me

To write about myself is not something that comes easily to me. I guess I prefer not to push myself on to others, and presume that others come to this blog because of the Garbologie story or the insights in waste or something similar impersonal.

And yet. And yet. Some of my most popular posts are about the personal journey I am on. My relatively unexciting post about why I couldn't write a post is far and away the most popular I've written. Another popular post is about moving from a job to building a business. A post about my social media epiphany was also well read.

So I am forced to concede that people are interested in the "I", the "Ich" behind the creation of Garbologie. And perhaps it comes to that art of story-writing - in reading about the story of somebody making something anew, we want to see the person transformed through the narrative arc.

The Hero Archetype

It is the Hero's Journey. This archetypal story is deep in our cultural psyche, this tale of the person and the transformation. As I am reminded in a recent post by +Grizwald Grim, it is About Me. Deeply so.

About Me

Right now seems an especially bad time to write about me. I am not standing astride mountains. I do not have the world laid out before me awaiting the guiding hand of its conqueror. Hell, I don't even feel master of my own destiny. I feel torn, unfocused, endoubted*.

All of this comes hot on the heels of seeing the grand vision and liking it very much. Like a cold, still Winter's day, what was crystal clear has become enshrouded in mist drifting across from a dark and sombre lake.

Of course, I know this will pass. It always does. And then I'll feel fine, then great, then crap, then great, then ok. And everything in between.

How do I pull through? Well, I mostly just take comfort in the fact that I know it will go. Once upon a time, in a different life, I would go for a charge through overgrown bush tracks on a strong horse, or ride my motorbike around some twisty roads, or just go for a leisurely run along dusty trails. Those pursuits are behind me now, and so I can only trade off their memory.

That memory is generally enough. The memory and the knowledge that, in the story that is written by my actions, I am transformed. And that act of transformation is not simple, not painless, and it's certainly not ever finished.

This is how we are

I don't think I'm any different to anybody else in this. I have big dreams, and they get snagged on the realities of life, pulled down in the undertow of busy little things. Just like everybody else.

Realities like exhaustion. My new Garbologie project is sending me to Brisbane and Sydney next week on a mad dash to see the opportunity clearer. This opportunity is fantastic, but it still requires a full 10 hours inside aircraft to see it for myself and be face to face with the people I'll deal with. The very thought of the trip exhausts me.

Realities like managing two distinct jobs. Garbologie desperately wants to take me into fields that risk accusations of conflict of interest. Conflict of interest matters a great deal when you are a public administrator, and so everything I do must be evaluated against not only IS it a conflict of interest, but might it be SEEN as a conflict of interest.

Realities like family, and balance and all of what really matters. I do not do this crazy venture to sacrifice family on the altar of self-realisation, but equally, I don't want to sacrifice this vision for a life that we don't really want either. My wife, my little daughter want me around more than they want me off building something in their name.

Yes, this is truly a difficult, a reflective time. It is a time for the long dormant poet to rear his head. Just not now. It seems he's not taking the bait, too distant to respond to the call. Perhaps he'll return in time for a future post.

Until then, I sign out exhausted but perhaps happy, wrung out but knowing I will soon be refreshed. Endoubted but full of hope. Understanding that, in this Hero's Journey of life, I am being transformed and that transformation is not comfortable.

* In case you were wondering, endoubted is a word I've made up because I can't find any other word that encompasses the sense more fully. You are free to reuse it at your leisure. I will neither claim nor enforce any intellectual property.