“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”¹

In this simple yet profound statement, Campbell invites us to live in rhythm with the world, to align our inner world with the vast, pulsing intelligence of the cosmos. This isn’t about conformity or submission—it’s about harmony.

Imagine living in such a way that your decisions, your pace, even your breath resonate with the energy of the earth, the sky, the sea. This is not poetic abstraction. It’s practical alignment. When you live out of sync—chasing goals that aren’t yours, living by someone else’s blueprint—life becomes noise. But when your heartbeat mirrors the universe, there’s music. Nature does not rush, yet everything is accomplished. So too, we are asked to find our natural pace, to move as we are built to move, not as we are pressured to. This alignment is where peace lives. It’s not passive—it takes courage to strip away the false layers and rediscover your true pulse. But once you find it, life flows. You begin to make choices not from fear or obligation, but from instinct and authenticity. The world doesn’t change, but your experience of it does. You are no longer an outsider trying to control chaos. You are part of the dance.

“Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.”²

This strikes at the core of modern angst. We search for meaning as if it’s buried treasure—something outside of us, hidden in a job, a partner, a cause. But Campbell flips the equation: meaning is not found, it is made. And more than that, we are the meaning. This idea can be unsettling because it puts the responsibility squarely on our shoulders. There is no script. No grand cosmic mission handed down from above. There is only the raw material of your life, and your hands to shape it. This is not nihilism—it’s liberation. If meaning is something you bring to life, then you are free to create something beautiful, something wholly yours.

There’s no final answer to the question “What’s the point?” because the point is unfolding every time you act with purpose, every time you love, every time you create, help, wonder, play. You are not here to decode the universe like a puzzle. You are here to express yourself as vividly and truthfully as possible. You are not waiting to be assigned a role; you are writing it. Stop looking for the answer. Be the answer. Stand in the space your life opens and fill it with meaning, moment by moment.

“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”³

Campbell shifts the focus from abstract meaning to visceral experience. What we really want, he says, is not to understand life, but to feel it fully. Meaning can become a mental game—detached, theoretical. But aliveness is unmistakable. It’s what you feel when your blood rushes after a leap into cold water, or when your heart cracks open in laughter or grief. These moments don’t explain life, but they justify it.

To feel fully alive is to be tuned in to the mystery, not trying to solve it. It’s the moment when your outer circumstances echo your inner truth—when what you do reflects who you are. That’s resonance. That’s the rapture he speaks of. This is what myth and art, love and danger, risk and play all invite us into: an existence felt in our bones, not merely examined in our heads. We crave aliveness because it reconnects us with what matters—presence, intimacy, awe. When you are truly alive, you’re not asking “What does it all mean?” You’re too busy living it. The search for meaning might be a detour from the real treasure: embodied experience, lived fully and honestly. Aliveness is not the byproduct of finding the answer—it is the answer.

“The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Eternity isn’t some later time. Eternity isn’t even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off…. the experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, whether thought of as good or as evil. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here is the place to have the experience. When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die.”²

Eternity, in Campbell’s view, is not a far-off realm or a reward after death, but a quality of consciousness. It is not a timeline stretched to infinity, nor a promise to be fulfilled in some distant future. Eternity is the now—pure, unfiltered, and outside the ticking of the clock. It is a dimension, not a duration. And the function of life, he says, is to awaken to it. We miss it when we chase time, measure days, mourn the past, or brace for what’s next. But in rare, lucid moments—when all thinking drops away—we touch it. In laughter that stops thought, in beauty that silences words, in stillness that swallows anxiety, eternity enters. Not as concept, but as presence. The veil of time lifts, and we see clearly: this moment, however ordinary or wild, is sacred.

Eternity includes all of it—the pain and the joy, the loss and the love. It does not judge. It simply is. And in that is-ness, we find a deeper truth: we are not creatures of time alone. Our truest nature was never born and will never die. To live with this awareness is not to escape life—it’s to inhabit it completely. To realize that here, not later, is the place. Now, not someday, is the doorway. This isn’t theology—it’s realization. When you feel it, you know: you are already eternal. The task is only to remember.

1. Excerpt from Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living.
2. Excerpt from Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth.
3. Excerpt from Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation.

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~Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) was an American professor, writer, and mythologist best known for his work in comparative mythology and religion. His groundbreaking book The Hero with a Thousand Faces introduced the concept of the “monomyth” or “Hero’s Journey,” a universal narrative pattern found across cultures and time. Campbell’s teachings emphasized the transformative power of myth and storytelling, urging individuals to “follow their bliss” and live authentically. His work has deeply influenced literature, psychology, film (notably inspiring George Lucas’s Star Wars), and modern spiritual thought. Through myth, Campbell sought to illuminate the shared human experience and the path to a meaningful life.

Excellence Reporter 2015