“Follow your Bliss”
~Joseph Campbell
September 02, 2011
How do we find our bliss and then stay committed to following it? As the renowned mythologist, author and teacher Joseph Campbell stated in the book, The Power of Myth “… I say, follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
How do we find our bliss and at the same time be assured that it will become a rewarding career choice and a good financial decision? The only way possible to adhere to this idea is to become fully aware and informed. We are in the historically unique position of having 24/7 accesses to global information and the latest news concerning every aspect of daily life. Given this unprecedented flow of knowledge and information, courses of study and career decisions must now be made with the understanding that all our lives and what we choose to do with them are directly linked and connected to each other.
It is all about collaboration. In order to do great things, everyone; Universities, students, governments and industry, must take to heart all that information, transform it and use it in a way that creates new paradigms for economic and social change. As a good friend who is a creative director, and formerly the worldwide director of marketing for a giant software corporation, recently said, “Higher education should be about higher thinking.”
We have to take this knowledge and transform it into the creative process of envisioning the future and achieving our full potential. In order to find and follow our bliss, institutions of higher learning must offer and guide us towards the best chances of creating and maintaining a healthy, happy and fulfilling life. We can no longer see global climate change, economic downturns and global conflicts as independent conditions that happen to be occurring simultaneously. Listen to Solomon Hsiang on Democracy Now as he discusses the link between climate change and global conflicts – “Global Warming & War: New Study Finds Link Between Climate Change and Conflict”
We must gather information to sharpen our minds, to a keen state of awareness as we listen to the presidential candidate, Gov. Rick Perry, who denies global warming as he uses a political platform to espouse his own beliefs and further his own chances of political success, claiming that, “The issue of global warming has been politicized. I think that there are a substantial number of scientists who have manipulated data so that they will have dollars rolling into their projects.” “Rick Perry Rejects Obama Criticism, Doubts Global Warming”
Consider the link between how we design cities and the rising levels of cancer and other illnesses, and the rising ocean acidification and rising ocean temperatures. Then consider the resultant severe weather conditions currently affecting the planet, and henceforth the billions of dollars spent on the toxic side effects of the toxic clean up and reconstruction.
Future environmental designers, architects and engineers can choose to follow new paths, to think differently and realize that they must design collaboratively, keeping in mind that what they do directly affects many aspects of life on our planet. They can create new, thoughtfully and environmentally conscious cities, roads, and buildings, which deal directly with the increasingly urgent problem of urban runoff. Urban runoff dumps so many bacteria and so many toxic chemicals into our ocean waters that it is making the oceans, our waterways, as well as animals and people very sick. An article on the Environment California website addressed this; “… To catch and filter runoff from roads before it hits storm drains, the cities of Portland and Seattle have conducted several studies and are poised to launch citywide ‘Green Streets’ programs that will retrofit roads with green spaces that allow storm-water to filter into the ground rather than run into storm drains. Pilot projects in these cities have been so successful that neighborhoods are calling, unsolicited, with requests to join the program.” “California’s Bays and Beaches: A Precious Human, Ecological and Economic Resource”. How about that for creating entirely new job sectors, and recognizing that the health of our oceans and rivers directly affects our very own health, now and in the future.
How many times have many of us said to ourselves: “If I had only known then what I know now…” Well there is no longer any excuse. Again to quote Joseph Campbell ––“If you want to change the world, change the metaphor.”
Jeannie Winston Nogai
Owner / Winston Nogai Design
www.jeanniewinston.com / E: jwndesign@me.com
