"There is an important idea in Nietzsche, of <i>Amor fati</i>, the "love of your fate," which is in fact your life. As he says, if you say no to a si… - Joseph Campbell

Only birth can conquer death — the birth , not of the old thing again, but of something new .

We have only to follow the thread of the hero path.
And where we had thought to find an abomonation,
we shall find a God.
And where we had thought to slay another,
we shall slay ourselves.
And where we had thought to travel outward,
we shall come to the center of our own existence.
And where we had thought to be alone,
we shall be with all the world.

What about this idea of good and evil in mythology, of life as a conflict between the forces of darkness and the forces of light? CAMPBELL: That is a Zoroastrian idea, which has come over into Judaism and Christianity. In other traditions, good and evil are relative to the position in which you are standing. What is good for one is evil for the other. And you play your part, not withdrawing from the world when you realize how horrible it is, but seeing that this horror is simply the foreground of a wonder: a mysterium tremendum et fascinans. “All life is sorrowful” is the first Buddhist saying, and so it is. It wouldn’t be life if there were not temporality involved, which is sorrow — loss, loss, loss. You’ve got to say yes to life and see it as magnificent this way; for this is surely the way God intended it. MOYERS: Do you really believe that? CAMPBELL: It is joyful just as it is. I don’t believe there was anybody who intended it, but this is the way it is. James Joyce has a memorable line: “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” And the way to awake from it is not to be afraid, and to recognize that all of this, as it is, is a