Those who remain

A bit back, I spent some time exploring possible alternative story shapes to the hero’s journey. At the end of the journey, the hero comes back with the new shiny thing – be that an object, a power, or an insight. Then the hero has to persuade the rest of the tribe that the new shiny thing has value, and sometimes, this is the hardest bit of the whole journey. Can the tribe accommodate the hero’s experience? They probably can’t understand him, they may resist change, or resent his ideas.

I think it’s worth pondering the journey of those who remain. For a start, if no one stays put, there is no closing act of the hero coming home. There is no home to come back to. The tradition and resistance the hero might struggle with, is also the thing that will hold his innovation ready for some future hero to have a problem with it.

Those who remain may have made heroic journeys at some previous time. However, those who remain as a choice, who make their journey through the same landscape day by day, still make a journey and their role is an important one. To be honest, this is a role I identify with far more than that of the wandering hero. My inclination is to stay, to put down roots, craft community and have a space for the wanderers to come back to.

Staying does not oblige me to resent those who travel. I do not have to be jealous of their journeys, nor need I feel threatened by them. I can be open to the stories and insights they bring back, and I can listen and bear witness when they reach the end of a particular journey and need to unload. For me this is not a hypothetical thing. As we develop a tribe in the valleys of Stroud, I notice that many of my people are adventurers, going forth repeatedly into the world to make their journeys and coming back with tales to tell. Not usually the world altering revelations of the official hero’s journey, but change nonetheless.

Many good things happen when we can embrace the domestic side of this story. The tribe the wandering hero returns to need not be resentful and unable to understand. The tribe may be full of people who have also wandered, and so do in fact get what it means to go away and come back again. Being the tribe, being the bit that stays at home need not be equated with narrow mindedness or disinterest. We do not have to be the final challenge to be overcome on a hero’s journey. We can thus point the way to the possibility of heroic journeys that are not conflict orientated, and that do not have to be struggle at every turn.