Shaula Evans at 2012-07-26 06:09:35:

I've been thinking about this quote since you posted it. It reminds me of some improv exercises. The first is "Yes, let's", where participants take turns calling out an activity (for example, "Let's climb Mt. Everest!"), and the rest of the room answers "Yes, let's!" and then acts out that action. It's a lot of fun, and a great warm-up that gets people working together as a group and turns their creativity on. (Could you do it on your own? It would be a little different but I don't see why not.) The second exercise is a scene game called "Yes, and"--where scene partners build on each other's statements, starting with the words "Yes, and", in rapid fire. So a conversation might go like this: "I saw Bigfoot today." "Yes, and he followed you home!" "Yes, and I made him a peanutbutter sandwich!" "Yes, and he had an allergic reaction!" "Yes, and I revived him with absinthe!" ...etc. It's a great exercise to get people past blocking (meaning rejecting suggestions...or "giving in to 'no'"). Neither of these are exactly what the Campbell quote is about...but neither are they exactly different than the quote. I feel like they are all going in a similar direction. (Both of those games are really fun to play with kids if you have any around, in fact possibly more fun than playing with adults.) The quote also kept feeling very Buddhist somehow. (In fact, most of the Campbell quotes you've put up have.) I don't recall having that reaction to Campbell when I first read him 20 years ago; Campbell hasn't changed so I must have. I wonder why I'm finding Buddhism there? And then tonight I ran across this article: >"Traditional Zen training, put very simply, is an exercise in living in such a constricted way that one has no choice but to find freedom within those walls. From my first moment in a monastery, I was told that the only word I should say—for at least the first few months—was “yes.” When told to do something, the reply is “yes.” When offered an explanation (rare—more often, one is simply shown), the response is “yes.” Asking questions suggests that one wasn’t paying attention the first time. There is no room for complaint; and since no one will ask about your well being, there is no need or opportunity to lie. We take off our robes just so, pour water just so, hold our bowls just so, walk just so, sit just so, arrange our personal things just so. We sleep (barely) and eat (barely) and sit (constantly) on a single 3×6 mat, and to this, we say “yes.”" -- from You're Free to Stay by Koun Franz I felt like that passage, in its own way, also gets at the heart of what the Campbell quote is pointing at, too. PS It's not a bad article to read in full at the beginning of a quest.