The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot - indeed must not - wait for his community to cast off its slough of pride, fear, and rationalized avarice and sanctified misunderstanding. 'Live', Nietzsche says, 'as though the day was here.' It is not society that is to guide and save the hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal - carries the cross of the redeemer - not in the bright moments of his tribe's great victories but in the silences of his personal despair - Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces.
A Mundane Comedy is Dominic Kelleher's new book, which will be published in mid 2024. The introduction is available here and further extracts will appear on this site and on social media in the coming months.