Among Friends Have an opinion on this column? Submit a Letter to the Editor Click here to return to archives Hero's journey is our journey By Tad Bartimus Posted January 23, 2009 Throughout his campaign, Barack Obama increasingly got tagged by his supporters as "the one," then was irreverently mocked by opponents who used the same label to raise doubts about his credibility. In an August video, Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign compared Obama to both Jesus and Moses, with an unseen narrator intoning: "It shall be known that in 2008 the world will be blessed. They will call him 'The One.'" Making fun of Obama's comment that "I have become a symbol of America returning to its best traditions," the McCain ad ended with: "Barack Obama may be The One. But is he ready to lead?" Prophecy is now reality; Obama IS the symbol of America by virtue of becoming "the one" we chose to lead us. The myths and mythology of his "hero's journey" now coalesce on the steps of the U. S. Capitol with the taking of the oath of office by our first African American president. Whether we voted for or against him, or didn't even cast a ballot, we need fervently to hope for this slender, 46-year-old, relatively untested leader's success, because his fate is inextricably intertwined with ours. If we depend on food stamps, need aid to dependent children, use Medicare, count on Social Security, have retirement savings tied up in the stock market, owe money on a mortgage, send a child to college, plan to be married or hold a job, we must have a strong, positive, optimistic and visionary leader of calm temperament, upstanding character and courageous will. During the campaign, Obama promised to be all those things. We must hold him accountable to that promise; if he fails to live up to his billing, we will go down with him. All of us, with lesser consequences, are on a hero's journey similar to his. Author Christopher Vogler, in his book "The Writer's Journey," believes a rite of passage is "as infinitely varied as the human race itself, yet its basic form remains constant." The pattern celebrated in all cultures' stories through the ages, and sprung on late 20th century pop culture through the late Joseph Campbell's accessible Cliff Notes-style book "the Hero With a Thousand Faces, begins with "once upon a time." Once upon a time, a human being leaves an ordinary life to reach for a higher purpose. That person is then mentored along the way. Rejection, failure and disappointment temporarily block the path, but after numerous heroic ordeals and a last-ditch effort against all odds, the hero triumphs, achieves the goal and reaps the reward. Because figures that appear repeatedly in our dreams and fantasies accompany us on our journey, says Vogler, who credits Campbell's book with much of his inspiration, "stories constructed on the mythological model have the ring of psychological truth." Obama, and all the storied heroes before him, tapped into this unfathomable well from which we all drink when he ran for the presidency on timeless universal themes of hope, change and "yes we can!" "There are only two or three human stories," wrote Willa Cather in "O, Pioneers," and "they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before." Obama's story is a modern twist on an ageless epic, but it's being played out in the human race's most dangerous era, a time when the whole world waits to see if this hero with a Kansas mother, Kenyan father, and global superstardom has arrived in time to save us from our own mess. The Victorian literary figure Thomas Carlyle, in his seminal essays "On Heroes," asserts that from the ashes of disaster, a relatively unknown figure always emerges to take charge and lead his followers away from the dangerous old into the security of the new. Carlyle cited historical figures from ancient Greece, Rome and Asia, as well as Napoleon Bonaparte in France and numerous English kings as leaders who daringly broke with the past and moved civilization along a notch. If he'd lived through World War II, Carlyle surely would have included Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt among such outsized figures. Historians are generally in agreement that Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln, despite their flaws, are among our greatest presidents who, along with Roosevelt, steered the nation through its worst crises. For slave-owner Jefferson, it was as midwife to its birth; for the melancholy Lincoln, it was as unifier and emancipator, the president who ended slavery and held the union together through the Civil War. Now it is Obama's turn. He must rescue us from our worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and be commander-in-chief in two ongoing wars. At the Nov. 4th apex of his hero's journey so far, Obama said of his election triumph: "If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer." At 12:01 p.m., January 20th, our 44th president travels into unknown territory that on ancient maps would have been labeled "here be monsters." Henceforth, he takes us with him as he brings change to America. His journey is now ours.