Our Own Hero’s Journey

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Our Own Hero’s Journey

Intrepid explorers in the heart of Africa (hubby and me)

Someone asked me once who my heroes were, and the person who immediately came to mind was a customer at the pharmacy where I worked. She had Crohn’s disease, which can be a miserable experience on a daily basis, but whenever she came in she was unfailingly pleasant and nice. I don’t know how she did it, to be honest – I’ve had my own chronic illnesses, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t manage so well.

We love heroes and their stories. They’ve existed since ancient times, as far back as the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian king who embarks on a series of adventures, as well as Inanna, the Sumerian goddess who challenges Gilgamesh and has plenty of exploits of her own.

By the rise of the ancient Greeks, numerous heroes roamed the landscape performing amazing deeds and helping people who’d run afoul of the capricious Greek gods. One of them, Prometheus, was a god himself, who stole fire from Hephaistos, the god of metalworking, to give to humans so that they could keep themselves warm and work with metal themselves.

The most famous Greek hero was Heracles, aka Hercules, who lives on in Hollywood to this day, although my personal favourite is Xena, Warrior Princess, along with her surprisingly resourceful sidekick, Gabrielle. Neither of those women were part of Greek mythology, but they were kick-ass heroines in a time period when male heroes still dominated the media.

Heroes and heroines tend to arise during darker times, when we need the shining beacon of the hope they embody.

The first superhero comics appeared amid the Great Depression and World War II. Superman was the first, followed by Batman (a somewhat ambiguous hero with a darker side), Captain America, Captain Marvel and Wonder Woman (the first of many female heroes to prove that women could be just as remarkable).

What is it about heroes that captivates us?

The stories provide us with an escape from hard reality, and a fun adventure to read, but according to psychologists, they also remind us of the potential for good in humanity when we see so much darkness in the news. Heroes remind us to be more kind and compassionate.

They represent the qualities that we all strive for: bravery, determination, selflessness and justice, and those can be guiding lights when we’re going through our own dark times.

I read an article recently, We Can Be Heroes, about how seeing your own life as a hero’s journey can be just as transformative for you as what the heroes go through in the stories.

The author, Adam, was inspired by the life of his grandfather, a nothing-particularly-special fellow who embarked on an adventurous life as a journalist just at the start of World War II. He survived to tell stories that prompted his grandson to take up the same career. Along the way Adam has interviewed quite a few people who turned themselves into heroes to overcome major setbacks.

The point of the piece is one that really struck a chord with me, as we all embark on another new year. It’s the idea of reframing our own lives into uplifting heroic stories.

Now you may think that’s a load of hooey, that bad times can’t be so easily remade as hero quests. And it’s certainly not always going to be easy.

But start on a small scale – every time you’ve given aid to a homeless person, helped someone out in a bind, had any kind of positive influence on someone else’s life. Once, many years ago while my mom was still alive, I was next in line at a cashier in a convenience store, and an elderly lady in front of me didn’t have quite enough cash to complete her purchase. She reminded me of my mom, and I gave the cashier the rest of what was owing. It wasn’t even $2.00, but the woman was so grateful for the kindness. I remember thinking that if my mom were ever out shopping and got herself into the same predicament, someone else would help her out. On that day I was a hero to that woman.

Psychologists tell us that we see our own identities as stories to make sense of our lives and all the pieces and layers within them. In our heads, we’re our own autobiographers. Some of us view our lives as comedies, some as tragedies.

My hubby and I are firmly on the comedy side, so many silly things have happened wherever we go for the entire time we’ve been together. I think we’d rather have a sense of humour about them.

The author of the article became interested in psychological resilience, and read some profound thoughts by an Austrian psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, who’d survived Auschwitz. Frankl was tasked with counselling his fellow prisoners in arguably the worst possible circumstances, and what he told them was that “everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

He wrote that, “The way in which a man accepts his fate and all the sufferings it entails, the way in which he takes up his cross, gives him ample opportunity—even under the most difficult circumstances—to add deeper meaning to his life. It may remain brave, dignified, and unselfish.”

Research has shown, time and again, that people can change their perspective, can become happier by changing their thoughts about life.

Morning tea in the African bush with a herd of red lechwe

What a remarkable idea that is! Who wouldn’t like to be able to see themselves as the hero in their own journey through life?! We don’t have to be Superman or Spiderman, we can just be our best selves, and continue to improve the world while we’re in it.

A hero’s journey is a classic one throughout the millennia of storytelling.

The Hero always starts off in an ordinary place – if you’re a fan of Lord of the Rings, you’ll recall that Bilbo is a perfectly ordinary hobbit (with an extremely well-stocked cellar, but that doesn’t help him on his quest).Something happens in which the would-be hero is called to some kind of adventure.Initially the Hero doesn’t want to take up the quest, butEventually he/she decides to go (or, or course, there would be no story). However, they don’t feel ready, and gladly accept the help of a Mentor.The Hero has committed to the journey, and sets off into the unknown.There are companions on the journey, and challenges to be met.The Hero arrives at the place where his/her goal lies.There’s a test, some kind of ordeal, that usually involves the Hero’s greatest fear. But success will bring transformation.The reward/goal is achieved.Every action has consequences, and the Hero must deal with them.In stories and films, things aren’t over yet – there’s one final test the Hero must face, where the villain gets one more chance to finish the Hero off. (Sometimes this works, sometimes it’s just a timeworn cliché.)The Hero is finally able to return home, with the prize/goal, but they’re a changed person and have to find a way to fit back into their old lives. That’s not always easy.

Our lives may have held many heroic journeys – nothing as grandiose as Bilbo’s quest to help the Dwarves regain their kingdom, but transformative nonetheless.

I can share one significant journey of my own by way of illustration.

Several years ago, as my and hubby’s silver wedding anniversary was approaching, we weren’t exactly looking forward to the African safari we’d planned to celebrate it. We’d had a bad year – we’d lost a family member and both of our beloved dogs, had upheavals at work. As we were packing our gear, I just couldn’t summon up my usual pre-departure excitement, even though this safari was the fulfillment of a long-held dream.

We flew out at night, and landed in London in time for my 50th birthday. With a 10-hour layover, we stowed our carry-ons at Heathrow and took the Tube into the city to wander around a bit and have lunch. Yet I remember walking around feeling not much of anything, just a kind of battered and bruised numbness, as if I was wrapped in a giant casing of cotton batting. London is one of our favourite cities, and a wonderful place to spend a milestone birthday, but I just couldn’t get into it.

Me, looking as soul-weary as I felt, in London

Then there was a long, 10-hour flight to Johannesburg, followed by another 3 hours to the small city of Maun in Botswana, one of the gateways to our objective, the Okavango Delta. The Delta wasn’t well known to many people at the time, although I’ve seen it featured on many nature shows since then. It’s the astonishing result of the Okavango River draining, not into the ocean like most other rivers, but into the Kalahari Desert, where it forms a beautiful, permanent wetland. We met our safari guide and fellow participants in Maun. Our guide, Ike, was very excited to get us out to the bushland that he loved, and we were swiftly ushered onto two small bush planes to fly to our first bush camp.

For this was a camping safari. We’d call it ‘glamping’, as we got to have all the fun with none of the work, but this was the first time my hubby and I had ever gone camping – yes, in the middle of the African bush. The flight was amazing, just 1,000 feet in the air over swamps and islands and elephants grazing among the trees right below us. We landed on a short strip of sand in the middle of nowhere, and boarded our safari vehicle for an hour-and-a-half game drive to get to camp. We saw our first impalas, bunched among the brush with ears raised, and a leopard tortoise, all kinds of birds, towering termite mounds, and much more.

In camp we were assigned our tents – 9’ x 9’ domes of canvas with mesh windows and a canvas bucket on a stand out front for washing up a little. The two bathroom tents were shared with the other five participants, and consisted of long-drop toilets and bucket showers.

Our tent in the Okavango Delta, Botswana

We had a delicious lunch overlooking the blue waters of the Delta, followed by an afternoon game drive where we saw majestic elephants just a few feet away from us, including an adorable baby. Dinner was by oil lamp next to a blazing fire, and early bed after a full day. I remember lying on my very comfortable cot under a cozy duvet against the nighttime chill, and thinking, My god, we’re really here, in Africa, under the stars and the Southern Cross. The night was filled with the sounds of tree frogs and fruit bats, and somewhere out in the darkness there were lions looking for dinner. My cotton casing was finally starting to unravel.

My foot next to the print of an elephant in the dried mud

The rest of the trip surpassed anything we might have imagined, as we got to know our delightful local guide and staff in the 4 camps we stayed in, as we saw giraffes grazing among the thorny acacia trees and listened to hippos tussling in the waters at dusk. The fresh breezes of the savannah blew away all our mental cobwebs, and the stillness of thousands of acres of African wilderness restored our balance. By the time the trip was over, it was difficult to leave it all and go home, and to try to live an ordinary life again after such wonders. We saw our Western conspicuous consumerism through new eyes, and certainly came home with a very different perspective of life in Africa.

A rare leopard sighting – a beautiful female beautifully camouflaged in the brush

It was an enormously transformative journey, meaningful only to us, but as we shared our adventure with others, we inspired others to go to a continent that had long been viewed with anxiety. And if something you’ve done inspires someone else, perhaps that’s a little heroism in action.

So I love this idea of viewing your life as a heroic journey, of something that’s full of wonders, challenges and learning. It’s what gets us through when the challenges seem overwhelming – both the memories and the hope of more adventures still to come.