Spirituality In The Power Of Myth By Joseph Campbell

Humans now have the capability of living longer than ever due to recent technological advancements, along with medicinal research. However, the ultimate price paid for these advancements is the dissociation of one’s own spirituality. Our ways of connecting and reasoning with nature and spirituality has immensely changed. Joseph Campbell, author of The Power of Myth, says “But when you think what people are actually undergoing in our civilization, you realize it’s a very grim thing to be a modern human being.” In its face value, Campbell might have been bitterly analyzing humans and conditions in which many people around the world live in. However, Campbell is actually referring to modern humans living a grim life due to the refusal of being
Humans now have the capability of having all the answers in front of them in just a few keystrokes of a keyboard. In this sense, humans are depending on non-living objects rather than looking inward for answers to everyday problems. Salvatore Folisi explains this by stating, “We no longer live in the actual world, but in our own self, created world, via the latest form of technology.” Recent technological advancements have done wonders for this world. Technology has greatly changed the way humans communicate, learn, and even think. However, humans have taken the souls out of each other and put them into machines. Humans no longer feel the need to experience nature or a spiritual connection. According to Folisi:
The natural world, the earth itself; the air, the trees, the vast realms of animals, plants, oceans, deserts, and mountains are increasingly losing meaning and value in the self-hypnotized, narasistic lives of mechanized human being. . . . It’s sad indeed, when we ignore what is right before our eyes, i.e. our actual surrounding environment, and instead remain culled to a collective techno-vision of the ideal man- made
Extrinsic motivations are “Motivations that comes from external sources, such as monetary rewards and trophies.” People are often motivated by money, fashion, cars, and reputation that they usually neglect intrinsic motivations such as personal growth, and most of all, happiness. According to the Cognitive Evaluation Theory, “Extrinsic rewards have a negative effect on an individual’s intrinsic motivation.” The biggest intrinsic motivator is happiness through one’s own spirituality. However, According to the Spiritual Science Research Foundation, on any given time, humans are happy only 30% of the time. This is due to low levels of human spirituality and high levels of desired material possessions and statuses. Intrinsic spirituality is described as “Candid, personally relevant, abstract, relational, discerning, and differiented.” This is in stark contrast with extrinsic spirituality, which is described as “lack of a knowledge base, is restrictive, detached, irrelevant to everyday life, concrete, and simplistic.” When extrinsic motivators are the main motivators in life, humans are forced to neglect intrinsic motivators, which are the main motivators to living a spiritual