Joseph Campbell quote about the meaning of life

“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 without own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”

― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Closeness

We are those social creatures, that spin around themselves and around their familiar things, casting our vital energies from inside out. The perception of this expression by the surrounding world is relevant.It depends on various factors. Mixed rythms, blended. One man is crying, another dreams in his sleep, someone else falls in love, somewhere else there are people not feeling too much, others smiling, pretending, or hurting. Sometimes deeply, sometimes not. How do you feel? Now you see yourself here, next minute far away. How close are we now?

''Windmills of your mind''

''Round like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending on beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
Like a snowball down a mountain
Or a carnival balloon
Like a carousel that's turning
Running rings around the moon
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Like a tunnel that you follow
To a tunnel of its own
Down a hollow to a cavern
Where the sun has never shone
Like a door that keeps revolving
In a half-forgotten dream
Or the ripples from a pebble
Someone tosses in a stream
Like a clock whose hands are sweeping
Past the minutes on its face
And the world is like an apple
Whirling silently in space
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind

Keys that jingle in your pocket
Words that jangle in your head
Why did summer go so quickly?
Was it something that I said?
Lovers walk along a shore
And leave their footprints in the sand
Was the sound of distant drumming
Just the fingers of your hand?
Pictures hanging in a hallway
Or the fragment of a song
Half-remembered names and faces
But to whom do they belong?
When you knew that it was over
Were you suddenly aware
That the autumn leaves were turning
To the color of her hair?

Like a circle in a spiral
Like a wheel within a wheel
Never ending or beginning
On an ever-spinning reel
As the images unwind
Like the circles that you find
In the windmills of your mind''


(Lyrics of the song ''Windmills of your mind'' by Alan Bergman and Marilyn Bergman, from the 1968 film, The Thomas Crown Affair)

What is life

I see the world as chaos.
I see myself as a strange being.
I see others like strangers as well.
But at the same time I belong on this planet
and I search for reasons worth living for.