Joseph Campbell's instructions to "Follow Your Bliss"

This is an excerpt from the multi-hour interview Bill Moyers did with Joseph Campbell, back in 1983.  It was released in video, audio, and book form as The Power of Myth.  I had the tapes, and have listened to all 6 hours, at least 50 times each.  Many creative people were inspired by Joseph Campbell's work, including George Lucas, while writing Star Wars.  This interview took place at Skywalker Ranch.  Here's George Lucas talking to Bill Moyers about Joseph Campbell, and the mythology behind the original Star Wars trilogy, 12 years after the Joseph Campbell interview.

Joseph Campbell was 25 when he went to Woodstock.  But he didn't go to the huge hippie concert in 1969.  Joseph Campbell went to Woodstock, New York in 1929, at age 25, when there was no work because of the Great Depression.  He rented a cleaned out chicken coop for $5 a month, and began to read classic literature for 9 hours a day.  He didn't read because he had to, he read because he wanted to.  He did that, 9 hours of reading, and 3 hours of hanging with friends, for about 5 years.  He also did some traveling during that time, but he spent most of it in the quiet little town of Woodstock.  

During those reading years, in story after story, he began to see the same themes played out, over and over again, in the best literature throughout history.  That concept, those themes, became the basis for Campbell's 1949 book, The Hero With 1,000 Faces.  Campbell went on to teach for nearly four decades at Sarah Lawrence College, and wrote and spoke much more about mythology and the religions of the world, and what they all had in common.  Ultimately, near the end of his life, that led to the interview above, at about age 79, which became The Power of Myth.  

Campbell's idea to "Follow your bliss," as explained in the video clip above, is to find what truly interests you, at this point in your life.  It's different for every person, and your intuition leads you to it.  It can, and will, change, as your life progresses.  It's pretty much always NOT what the people around you want to to do with your life, which leads to a lot of soul searching and drama at times.  No one can tell you you're doing it right or doing it wrong.  But if you do follow your bliss, life will lead you on an adventure you'd never imagine early on.  

I know, this is how I've lived my weird life.  It's caused me a lot of trouble, but also has shown me great rewards.  Yeah, I'm homeless these days, so financial rewards weren't in the picture for many years of my life.  But I sleep better as a homeless man, than a lot of people in luxurious bedrooms.  I've now lived for 2 1/2 years, this stretch, on the streets of Southern California, mostly in L.A. county.  I live and sleep alone, without a tent, unarmed.  I haven't carried any weapon since I've been back out here in 2019.  

How is that possible?  Because of what my weird journey through life has taught me.  That doesn't mean it doesn't get dicey at times.  I've struggled, been pretty hungry at times, cussed up a storm when frustrated, and been toe to toe with a crazy fucker who actually had devil horns tattooed on his bald head (I recommend avoiding that type of situation if possible).  I'm still here.  Still learning.  And still working every single day, doing work I love, even if it doesn't pay shit for the time being.  

So what's your "bliss?"  What subject or idea fascinates you right now?  What could you dedicate the next chunk of your life to, if you had no other responsibilities?  Just think about that for a moment.  What was the very first thing that came to mind?  The idea that made the rest of your mind go "oh no, I couldn't do that."  Think about that for a few minutes.  That's a start to finding our "bliss," if you haven't already.

Now, you have a life, of some kind.  You have responsibilities.  But that doesn't mean you can't spend a little time on that subject or activity that really fascinates you.  Go ahead, give that thing a little more time in your life, and see where that leads.  That's how you "follow your bliss." 

The Big Freakin' Transition in a nutshell

I'm going way back, for a classic comedic look at the factory worker's life in the Industrial Age.  Charlie Chaplin trying to get through the day in Modern Times, from 1936.

Disclaimer

The Big Freakin' Transition is my concept, an extension of The Third Wave idea put forth by futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler, and published in Alvin's 1980 book, The Third Wave *.  

This is a big idea, and involves a lot of different aspects of our society.  But at it's core, my concept of The Big Freakin' Transition is two basic ideas:

One:  We are not IN the Industrial Age anymore, but we are not IN the Information Age, either.  We are in an 80 to 90 years transition period where American society morphs from the Industrial Age into the Information Age.  This transition period began in 1956, according to futurists Alvin and Heidi Toffler, and I estimate the end will be about 2035-2045.

Two:  To remain viable in modern society, EVERY business, industry, organization, institution, and individual must make the transition from an Industrial Age living and working model, to an Information Age living and working model.  When pretty much all of society has made the switch, then we will be fully in the Information Age.  The world seems so crazy these days because we are in this huge, long, major transition phase.  

There are tons of details and factors, but that is The Big Freakin' Transition concept at its core.  

To grossly oversimplify things, originally humans were tribal people that we usually refer to as hunter/gatherers.  The First Wave of civilization was the transition from hunter/gatherer society to an agricultural society  People began to plant crops and farm, stay in one place, and villages became permanent, and turned into small towns, and eventually into cities.  That began about 10,000 years ago, probably in the region that is now Turkey.  It took a couple of thousand years for agriculture to travel the Earth, and become the dominant form of human society.

The Second Wave of civilization was the transition from agricultural society to an industrial society.  This, the Tofflers tell us, began about 350 years ago, and took a couple of hundred years to circle the Earth, to become the dominant form of society.  The factory based Industrial Age continued well into the second half of the 20th century.  

The Third Wave, as the Tofflers saw it, is the transition from an Industrial-based society to an Information-based society.  As it's called now, the transition from the Industrial Age to the Information Age.  Alvin Toffler's book on this came out in 1980, four years before the Apple Macintosh computer, the first personal computer for "regular people."  He also wrote it right as the thousands of American factories began to either outsource jobs to other countries, or replace human workers with industrial robots and other technology.  So most people who did read The Third Wave when it was knew thought, "OK, the factories are shutting down or moving overseas, we have Silicon Valley, high tech, computers and cell phones, we're in the information-based age now."    

Of the people alive today, the Greatest Generation, the Baby Boomers, and Generation X were born at times when the Industrial Age was still going strong.  The Millennials, Generation Z (you'll get a new nickname, don't worry), and today's kids, were born into times when the Industrial age was fading fast, and the Information Age was (and still is) coming on strong.  So to our older generations the Industrial Age is "normal," and to the younger generations, the Information Age is "normal."  That alone explains a lot in today's culture.

The Big Freakin' Transition is my idea that the Toffler's Third Wave concept is still playing out.  I think that we didn't jump right into the full blown Information Age when all the factories shutdown, or moved overseas in the 1980's, 1990's, or 2000's.  I believe we are actually in an 80 to 90 year long transition period BETWEEN the Industrial Age and the Information Age.  We have a lot of the technology of the full Information Age now, but a lot of our businesses, industries, and institutions are still working from Industrial Age models, and have not fully integrated their business or working models to ones that work in the Information Age.  The Tofflers put the beginning of this transition period at 1956, the first year "white collar" office workers outnumbered "blue collar" factory workers in the United States.  I believe this transition period will last at least until about 2040, maybe longer.  

Very simply, we are about 2/3 the way through this long, crazy, chaotic period of transition from one type of society and lifestyle, to another.  No other civilization has had to make this big of a social transition in the span of a single lifetime.  We are going from one way of life to another, and it's weird, scary, crazy, and chaotic.  We are in between the Industrial Age and the Information Age, and have aspects of both working in our world right now.  

That's the Big Freakin' Transition, in a nutshell. For the record, I've been referring to this idea as"The Big Transition" in my personal and online writing, for 3 years or so.  I figured that I'd come up with a catchier name at some point, but I never did.  When I decided to write this blog, and go into more detail on all that the idea ties into, I finally googled "The Big Transition."  There's one religious book by that name, on totally different ideas, and several other things that came up in my search.  So I added the word "freakin'" to set it apart, and to not make it too serious and boring.  I think this concept, as a context for the craziness of today's world, can help us explain and understand what's going on. 

In future posts I'll go into much more depth on this general idea, and into the details of the various aspects of it.  The basic idea to get right now is, yes, the world seems crazy for a reason, we're in a huge transition period that is crazy and chaotic, by it's nature.  It's OK to be freaked out by all that's going on.  I hope this concept can help other people understand this transition, and then find their own way to work within it.

* Not a paid link.

My clothes got stolen...

The good thing about being a Social Distortion fan is that whatever happens in your life, they have a song for it.  "Bad Luck." 

I'm homeless.  I'm not shy about mentioning it, when it comes up in conversation or writing, but I don't bitch and moan about it in my blog, for the most part.  I lost my storage unit, just couldn't pay the nearly $300 a month, a couple weeks ago.  My fault, no one else's, shit happens.  For a couple weeks, I've had about two changes of clothes.  They were almost all dirty, in a plastic bag, and definitely needed washing.  Pretty ripe.  Someone stole those while I was sleeping last night.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't the local mountain lion, or the coyotes, they aren't my size, and have better taste should they decide to where clothes.  So it was probably one of the many roaming crackheads or tweekers.  Fuckin' street zombies. It's L.A., shit happens.   

On the bright side, I don't have to do laundry today.  I'll be modeling the new homeless cologne, Stench, for Men (it helps with social distancing).  OK... moving on...  We all have days when we wake up, and Life says...

Gary Vaynerchuk explains the basics of NFT's (back in February)

Like millions of people, I'm a big fan of Gary Vaynerchuk, I've been following his content for maybe 3 years now, I think.  In this video he gives a fairly quick, 8 minute take on where NFT's (Non Fungible Tokens) were, back in February.  

With my current, sketchy lifestyle, it's been nearly impossible for me to take in large amounts of information, for most of the Covid period.  As a homeless guy who actually does some kind of "work" every day, like art and content creation, I struggled to get any decent amount of time online to learn.  The little bit of time I had, 1-2 hours a day, was mostly keeping in touch with people social, and quick blog posts, content creation. So I didn't listen to much of what Gary, and many others, were doing, for several months.  

Over the past few months, in the limited amount of media I did consume, I started seeing the term "NFT" in relation to artists and musicians.  I knew it was somehow tied to Ethereum, but didn't have time to dig into it, and learn anything about it.  

NFT stands for Non Fungible Token.  Let's start with "fungible."  Money, for example, is fungible, one dollar is worth as much as any other dollar.  You can pay for lunch with dollar bills, coins worth a dollar, a dollar in your debit card account, or a dollar in your Apple Pay account.  Any dollar is worth the same, that's what fungible means.  That's a big part of the point of money.  

Now one big problem for creative people, of any kind, in the digital age, is that we all can share digital files.  A book, a song, a piece of art, a photo, a video clip, whatever, we can all make copies, and share the copies, and millions of copies could end up being made.  Nobody gets paid, and most are pretty much worthless.  Creative people, and businesses, lose lots of money because of this.  

So someone figured out how to take a digital file, let's say a scan of one of my drawings, and "mint" it, tying it into a blockchain, mostly the Ethereum blockchain.  Because there is only one file tied to the blockchain in that transaction, and anyone can check that, suddenly it's "scarce."  It's an original.  When you do that, mint a digital file into the blockchain, that's called a Non Fungible Token, of NFT, for short.  You can make NFT's out of art, photos, music, video clips, contracts, things like ID, any digital file.  And people can prove, "that's the REAL one."  You need to make them out of your own work, that you own, or else you get into copyright trouble. 

This started among tech geeks in 2016-2017, and different projects started to happen.  Crypto Kitties was one of the first.  Crypto Punks, a group of 10,000, unique, 24 bit characters, was another.  That one was actually tied to Bitcoin.  Another early big one was Bored Ape Yacht Club, funny looking apes in clothes, all with different features.  The Crypto Punks were given away, for something like 11 cents in fees.  People did what people do, they collected them, traded them, and started selling them, and an aftermarket developed.  Even though these are just files, the blockchain tie makes each unique, and potentially valuable, and this year they've been selling for downright ludicrous prices.  

One of the 10,000 Crypto Punks sold for $530 million.  Again, they were free, with an 11 cent service charge, in 2017.  One of the Bored Apes sold for $3.4 million.  A Crypto Kitty sold for over $3.4 million.  Digital graphic designer Beeple, (who says he's not an "artist") sold a compilation of 5,000 of his digital sketches, for over $69 million in March.  You get the idea.  If you think the real estate market is crazy, it's tame next to the high end of the Crypto Art/NFT market.  

The NBA did an NFT project called Top Shots, and raked in over $100 million.  Gary Vaynerchuk did a launch of 10,000 NFT's, based on his own doodled characters.  He made about $20 million, instantly formed a huge community of his followers, and then sold 5 of the original sketches in a Christie's auction for $1.2 million. So that's the insane side of the NFT boom, the 2021 NFT Art/Collectibles market.  

On the much more sane side of things, a whole bunch of artists and musicians have minted NFT tokens of their work, and put them up on several market sites, kind of like eBay for NFT's.  Most sell for $40 to maybe $300, plus some fees, when they sell. They pay (almost exclusively) in Ether (Ethereum crypto).  You have to buy crypto, get a wallet, and then sign up to the marketplaces, to create, buy, sell, or trade NFT's.  But there's a lot of that going on.  

NFT's have a whole bunch of other potential, as well.  Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and Shark Tank guy, is stoked on NFT's.   He sees a future where they may be the standard type of concert or sports event ticket.  You may get bonus, digital stuff, with your game or concert NFT.  They could be used for ID's, passports, and things like that some day.  You can take your NFT into vitural worlds, there are actually virtual art galleries displaying NFT's right now.  You know that Metaverse thing Mark Zuckerburg is talking about, these are part of that concept.  

So that is a basic look at the emerging world of NFT's.  I've been digging into this world for about a week now, to see if it makes sense for any of my creative work.  We'll see where that leads.  If any of this interests you, watch the video above, check out the links, and you can find a ton more info on YouTube. 

Martino Cattaneo's "Madness" Skate edit

This is the coolest skate edit I've seen in quite a while, not including Andy Anderson's videos, he's kind of in his own world.  I've been watching his clips a lot lately.  But Martino finds all kinds of weird street places to land some great tricks.  

I've been off blogging on several blogs, in several different directions, for about a year and a half, pretty much the whole Covid period.  Part of that was because this blog hit a nice, big, round number of 100,000 page views, so that was a good time to retire, and I was tired of writing BMX posts.  Also partly because all my blogs on this channel got banned on Facebook, and my WPOS channel wasn't banned.  Now pretty much every blog I do gets immediately banned on FB, so it doesn't really matter.  

So this blog is going to bounce around a lot, and will not have much BMX on it.  I still have the 3rd version of Freestyle BMX Tales, and any Old School BMX posts will probably go there.  So I'm starting over in a sense, in several ways, and still thinking about where to take this blog.  So... we'll see where it goes. 

Back from hiatus

You don't have to be a train wreck to become a writer.  But it's a damn good place to start.  Meme I made a couple of days ago.  #stevemigmemes

In May of 2020, this blog hit the 100,000 page view milestone, which is pretty epic for a personal blog.  I started this blog in late June of 2017, bringing my other blogs ideas into one, shortly after moving out of my mom's small apartment, in Kernersville, North Carolina, and into a tent in the woods in Winston-Salem, NC.  I was completely focused on trying to make a living with my #sharpiescribblestyle artwork at the time.  I had no idea if anyone, at all, would every read this blog.  Hey, guess what? Quite a few people have checked out this blog in the 4 1/2 years since (check the counter).  The start of this blog seems like 20 years ago to me.  

I've sold 50 or more original pieces of my Sharpie art since then, and managed to continue as a homeless, but working, artist.  I've had three short respites from homelessness in the last 4 1/2 years, about two months each, and about a year apart each.  I also tried out a few new blogs.  Here they are:

WPOS Kreative Ideas- Creativity and stuff

Steve Emig Adventuring- Weird and cool locations in California (with a lame ass blog title)

Crazy California 43- Weird and cool locations in California (Cool blog title)

Full Circle- Writing and the writer's life

The Big Freakin' Transition- My name for the time period I believe we're in, an 80 to 90 year long transition period between the Industrial Age and the Information Age.  

For most of the last 18-19 months, the Covid Era, as we now seem to call it, I had to struggle to just survive on the streets of the San Fernando Valley. It was really struggle to find a place to charge my laptop, and then travel somewhere else by bus, to find wifi to actually get online, until my battery died.  For much of this time, it was all I could do to just keep in touch with people.  I didn't have much time to blog, and do the nuts and bolts, behind the scenes work of promoting my blogs, linking things, making Pinterest pins, and all of that.  

Now I've found a library to work in, so I can actually plug in and work on wifi at the same time.  Imagine that.  While I was struggling to just keep blogging, and do some Sharpie art to make some money, this blog just kept getting views, from all the various links to it from all over.  

So after splitting my different ideas into different blogs, and trying various ideas out for a while, I've decided to come back to this blog, and get it going again.  Like always, I'm not sure where that will lead.  We'll find out together. 

In May, in another blog, I went through and checked out how many blogs I have that actually have about 1,000 or more page views.  I try on different blog ideas like women try out hairstyles, there were more than I thought.  The total surprised me.  I started blogging seriously in December of 2008.  Since then, I've created over...

25 different blogs, over 2,405 blog posts, and pulled in over 438,000 total page views, as of May 2021.  Here's that post.

 

Addicted to blogs

 

There isn't a really cool blog song that I know of, but Harvey's Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" is cool, and mentions zines, where I got my self-publishing start.  Close enough.  

"I want to publish zines, and rage against machines..."

-Harvey Danger, 1998, When zines were resurging, and when blogs were just being invented.

I started my first blog about taxi driving in 2007, while living in my taxi in Huntington Beach.  I would go to the H.B. library and rent a computer for $5 an hour, since I didn't own one, and write about funny license plate rings or bumper stickers I saw while driving my taxi.  I think I wrote about 30 posts, and had maybe 50 page views in a year, which seemed to mostly be from my mom and the cops.  Not the greatest start to blogging, but you have to start somewhere. 

In November of 2008 I landed at my parents' tiny apartment in Kernersville, NC, after a year living on the streets in Orange County, CA.  That homeless year followed about 4 1/2 years of 7 days a week taxi driving, living in my taxi for about 4 of those years.  I lived in an indie art gallery for 6-7 months, and drove a taxi on the weekends the other part of that time.  When I got to NC, I was 325 pounds, in horrible health, 42 years old, broke, and lost everything I owned in that move.  I lost everything from my 20+ years of BMX riding, except a key chain.  I went from depressed to really depressed.  

But I had my parents computer in my room. I had never really spent any time online up until that point, I was a total Luddite, thinking "Fuck that goofy internet shit."  I knew almost nothing about the virtual world.  Within two weeks, I started a blog called FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales, about my 5 month stint working at BMX Action and FREESTYLIN' magazines in 1986.  I've been blogging pretty consistently ever since.  I've learned a few things about blogging in the 12 1/2 years since.  Here are the main blogs I've done...

FREESTYLIN' Mag Tales..... about 212 posts..... over 25,000 page views.... 2008-2009

Freestyle BMX Tales..... over 500 posts..... over 125,000 page views..... 2009-2012

Make Money Panhandling (picked stupidest title I could think of to practice search engine optimization (SEO)..... 100 posts?.....  about 65,000 page views, 2010-2012

A month or so after my dad died in August of 2012, I got seriously depressed, and deleted all my blogs (I had tried about 20 or 30 blog ideas, trying to figure out how to make money with a blog).  I immediately regretted deleting my blogs after I did it.  Lesson, DON'T delete your blogs.

Freestyle BMX Tales..... (version 2, on wordpress.com)..... can't remember how many posts..... 40-50 posts?  10-20,000 page views?  Not sure.  

Freestyle BMX Tales 43 (Version 3).....89 posts..... 40, 124 page views.... 2015-2017

Bum to Bankroll..... 51 posts..... 1,403 page views..... 2015-2016 

Become Your Own Hero (line from a poem I wrote)..... 49 posts..... 1,402 page views..... 2015-2016

Cash Poor Story Rich..... 6 posts..... 1,111 page views..... 2016

Check out downtown Kernersville (North Carolina)..... 6 posts..... 963 page views..... 2016

Create Your Own Dang Job..... 17 posts..... 1,041 page views..... 2017  (If you look up nothing else here, check out the first post on this one, my playlist for Trump's inauguration day)

Freaks, Geeks, Dorks, and Weirdos..... 42 posts..... 877 page views..... 2016

Get Weird Make Money..... 38 posts..... 839 page views..... 2017

 How to Make Your Lame City Better- Part 1..... 22 posts..... 1,808 page views..... 2016

How to Make Your Lame City Better- Part 2..... 57 posts..... 330 page views..... 2016

New Ideas for Old American Buildings..... 24 posts..... 538 page views..... 2017

Steve Emig Art..... 86 posts..... 12,364 page views.....  2017 

The White Bear's Stuff..... 35 posts..... 2,053 page views..... 2017-2018

Steve Emig: The White Bear.... 700 posts..... 124,513 page views.....2017-2020

Block Bikes Blog (for Block Bikes Shop/website)..... 96 posts..... 21,839 page views..... April-June 2019

The Phoenix Great Depression..... 47 posts..... 985 page views..... June 2020-October 2020

Small Business Blaster..... 17 posts..... 953 page views..... 2020

Welcome to Dystopia: The Future is Now- Book 1.....this is a book published as a blog..... 20 chapters/posts, all built December 2019..... 1962 page views..... December 2019- April 2020

Steve Emig Adventuring..... 67 posts..... 2,462 page views..... 2020-2021

 WPOS Kreative Ideas..... 89 posts..... 5,541..... April 2019-May 2021

Current blogs (revised October 8, 2021):

The Big Freakin' Transition

Crazy California 43..... 35 posts..... 765 page views..... April-May 2021

Full Circle- My new blog about writing and the writing life.

And a new fiction blog...

Stench: Homeless Superhero

 So...  Over 12 1/2 years, 25 blogs,  2,405 blog posts, 438,932 page views.  

I just found dozens of blog posts, actually a few hundred, that I totally forgot I wrote.  I've tried at least 30 more blog ideas, and stopped after a few posts.  But a lot of my same themes, like creative scenes, re-building our world, starting a small business, Sharpie Scribble Style art, and of course, BMX freestyle.  Lesson for today?  Don't be afraid to try new ideas on a blog.  When you get one that feels right, roll with it.  If you burn out on that idea for a while (or forever), leave the blog up online, and go try something else for a while.  

So... who wants to go down my rabbit hole?  Click one of those links.  I just blew my own mind.