The Heroes Journey!

The winter was sucking the life out of me. But I was still holding on. I was holding on to the way I had pictured my Queenstown experience to unfold. I denied my naivety and in my inexperience, and was distracted by my own arrogance, my own way and my own plan. It was the way of Joshua St Clair, and not the way of QRC, the college I was attending. I was a fool who couldn't wait six months, and troubles erupted like pimples because of my inability to surrender to the flow of life. Salvation was right beneath my very nose. QRC had its own accomodation called 'Shotover Lodge' that housed many returning students. Yet, I believed I had already transcended my student-hood, and turned away from Shotover Lodge. It was 15 minutes out of town, lost in a seperate valley, and deprived of the mystical waters that lapse lake Wakatipu. I wanted to be in town where all the hustle and bustle was, and that's how I ended up signing a contract to Karlin's ice-shack. But it was...

I wasn't prepared for the Queenstown winter. Summer's brilliance had fled north, and the tendrils of bitter cold came slithering through the valleys. Glacial winds shattered against the shoulders of the mountains. Stony frost descended from the raw skies. Winter had arrived with eyes of wrath, holding its sceptre. There was no escaping winter's bony fingers. I was lucky to find a room in a little wooden house perched on Fernhill, but it offered no respite. The chill seeped into the wooden boards like ink, numbing my new abode into an ice shack. The room itself was satisfactory. There was space against the wall for my keyboard, which was my one and only requirement, so I was happy. Taking up the other half of the room was a king sized bed with mammoth blankets - my shield against the cold. I collapsed and sunk into its plush embrace, feeling the summer in my belly. This was my new headquarters for reconstructing Joshua St Clair, and that was special. The two oth...

My ego was splintered. I sat in my college lectures feeling aggrieved, not wanting to hear what the teacher had to say about financial statements. I felt like a cat getting scrubbed. I wanted 'Joshua St Clair' to work out so badly, but it just didn't. Thinking about my failure was like taking shots of whiskey. I had already adventured far and wide - hacking through the jungles in Queensland and conquering the mountains in Queenstown. I must have accidentally convinced myself I was the king! But it was humbling to realise that I was no more than a little squire whose greaves were too big for him. It took me a few days to accept the fact that 6 months of college still loomed above me. My dream of freedom was still half a year away, and the only way there was through a military obstacle course. But the true warrior does not shy away from a challenge. He charges in like a rhinoceros. I started to chew the fat of my circumstance, and correct my attitude. It was just ...

I failed. I returned to Queenstown primed and ready to launch into my golden years as 'Joshua St Clair'. But the whole endeavour was a massive flop. I'm in the future now, and thanks to the miracle of hindsight and self reflection, I am able to see the mistakes I made and the traps that I fell into. Reflecting on our failures is crucial if we hope to succeed in future endeavours and not be mangled by the same shrapnel that exploded in our face the last time around. I analysed what went wrong, and recognised my 4 biggest blunders. I was trying to establish myself as an musician/artist, but these boobytraps are laid out in almost every path of life. And so, I wanted to share these with you here as a way of raking up the leaves on the path, and revealing the pits with the gnarliest spikes at the bottom. 1. Attachment to my own work My heart strings were attached to my own music, and I never snipped them. I had produced an album of original tunes and two music vide...

Surely you didn't think I would give up that easily, did you? I struck the bullseye of an EPIC FAILURE! But this is a Heroes Journey after all.. I had only just encountered the first threshold guardian. And I needed be creative if I wanted to wrestle with this groaning beast. Explorations into my own psyche were showing me just how much of a child I was. I wanted to invoke young Josh into my every day, because young Josh was WAAAYY cooler than me - he had it going Bossa Nova! (Read more: Discovering Life Purpose) I was on the cusp of adulthood, and I wanted to attain Bossa Super-Nova! So I inquired into why young Josh had all the answers, and ended up knocking on the door to a most mystical house - an eternal abode. We call it 'The Imagination'. Young Josh was the robed wizard of this house. It was no wonder that he was so free-spirited. I contemplated on it, and realised that this faculty of the mind, 'the imagination', was something I still had...