2013: Crossing the Threshold
Know what this is?
This is a photograph of a door knob. Not just any door knob, but a truly special one. It involves one of my guiding lights: Joseph Campbell.
Campbell taught at Sarah Lawrence College for 38 years. I was having a conversation last year with Jeff Kirschner, a writer who I met through some courses I’ve taught online and subsequently become a friend. I’m not sure how the topic came up, but he mentioned that he knew somebody at Sarah Lawrence. I told Jeff how for years, I had badgered a friend who taught there to see if he could find Campbell’s old office, and if he could, please take a photograph of his door. That never happened. Life moved on.
Several months passed. One day I received something in mail: A framed photograph. This photograph. With a note from Jeff:
Dear Scott,
It took me a while, but here it is. The enclosed photograph is what Sarah Pinard, Archivist at Sarah Lawrence College, believes was Joseph Campbell’s door knob and key hole lock leading to his office between 1934 and 1939.
May it serve as a reminder of just how many doors you’ve opened for people, in a selfless manner that has enriched so many lives.
Sincerely,
Jeff
I have kept this photograph on my office desk since the day I received it as it is one of my most inspirational talismans.
Campbell got a B.A. in English literature in 1925 and an M.A. in Medieval literature in 1927, both from Columbia University. Then he studied in Europe where he was exposed to an incredible array of ideas, books and thinkers including James Joyce and Carl Jung. He returned to Columbia University to pursue studies in disparate areas including Sanskrit and modern art, but the school would not give its approval. So instead of confining himself to a narrow doctoral program, he left the world of academics to find his own path.
This choice represented an enormous threshold crossing for Campbell and exemplifies the spirit of his philosophy: Follow your bliss.
From 1929–1934, Campbell rented a shack in Woodstock, New York where he read on average 9 hours per day. [Once when Campbell was asked if he prayed, his response was, “No, I read.”] He read everything that interested him including thousands of stories from around the world and throughout history.
During this time, he traveled to California where he befriended a young writer named John Steinbeck. He traveled to Alaska. He edited some papers delivered by Carl Jung. And all of that led him to his position at Sarah Lawrence College.
I like to imagine a young Joe Campbell on that first day he entered the campus. Clearly he loved learning, but had some antipathy toward the world of academics. What must he have been thinking when he strode down the hallway to his office, likely his first office, and set his hand on the doorknob pictured above.
Here, too, a threshold. What path would he take? A quiet life as a college professor. Or continue his voracious studies of literature, psychology, philosophy, myths and stories?
Fortunately he did the latter and in 1949 published his seminal work “The Hero With a Thousand Faces.”
Here is one of my favorite inspirational Campbell quotes, something I have referenced a time or two, but no time better than the first day of the New Year to consider its importance again:
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”
Every story we write represents a threshold. Every day we choose to write, a threshold. Every scene, a threshold. We set our hand upon a virtual doorknob and have a choice: Enter or turn away. Believe or not. Trust or not.
Today is January 1, 2013. It is a threshold for each one of us. We stand at the door to our respective futures, the Special World awaiting us on the other side.
Here’s to you discovering creative empowerment in your own Special World… on the other side of this threshold.
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