Follow Your Bliss — and Your Blisters

SACRED OUTRAGE

How do we summon the right blend of practical love and constructive anger?

How do we refrain from hating other people even as we fight fiercely against the hatred and danger they have helped unleash?

How do we cultivate cheerful buoyancy even as we neutralize the bigoted, autocratic poisons that are on the loose?

How can we be both wrathful insurrectionaries and exuberant lovers of life?

How can we stay in a good yet unruly mood as we overthrow the mass hallucinations that are metastasizing?

In the face of the danger, how do we remain intensely dedicated to building beauty and truth and justice and love even as we keep our imaginations wild and hungry and free?

Can our struggle also be a form of play?

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David Whyte writes: “ANGER is the deepest form of compassion, for another, for the world, for the self, for a life, for the body, for a family and for all our ideals, all vulnerable and all, possibly about to be hurt.

“Stripped of physical imprisonment and violent reaction, anger is the purest form of care; the internal living flame of anger always illuminates what we belong to, what we wish to protect and what we are willing to hazard ourselves for.

“What we usually call anger is only what is left of its essence when we are overwhelmed by its accompanying vulnerability, when it reaches the lost surface of our mind or our body’s incapacity to hold it, or when it touches the limits of our understanding.

“What we name as anger is actually only the incoherent physical incapacity to sustain this deep form of care in our outer daily life; the unwillingness to be large enough and generous enough to hold what we love helplessly in our bodies or our mind with the clarity and breadth of our whole being.”

- From David Whyte’s book, Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words






It turns out that the "blemish" is actually essential to the beauty. The "deviation" is at the core of the strength. The "wrong turn" was crucial to you getting onto the path with heart.





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FOLLOW YOUR BLISTERS

Most of us have heard the exhortation "Follow your bliss!" It was popularized by mythologist Joseph Campbell. After studying the archetypal stories of many cultures throughout history, he concluded that it was the most important principle driving the success of most heroes.

Here's another way to say it: Identify the job or activity that deeply excites you, and find a way to make it the center of your life. Do what you love. Honor the strong drives of your heart.

But in his later years, Campbell worried that too many people had misinterpreted "Follow your bliss" to mean "Do what comes easily."

That's all wrong, he said. Anything worth doing takes work and struggle. "Maybe I should have said, 'Follow your blisters,'" he laughed.

Although many people believed Campbell's original quote was, "Follow your bliss and the money will come," he didn't actually say that.

In the days before fact-checking quotes on the internet became easy and routine, I was one of those who was under that misimpression.

I used "follow your bliss and the money will come" as a primary hypothesis for many years as I cooked my twice-a-day rice and beans and veggies on a hot plate in my one-room shack; as I rode my bike everywhere since I couldn't afford a car or insurance; as I neglected my dental care because I had no money to pay for it, and Medi-Cal, the California state government's insurance program. financed only the most meager and mediocre treatments.

After a while, when it was clear the money wasn't coming anytime soon, I amended Campbell's motto to read, "Follow your bliss and your blisters, and the money may come—although long past the time when you wish it would have."

I faithfully wrote my astrology column for 18 years before the money came. The process of getting it syndicated was brutally slow and gradual.