Stoke Your Fire

If you’re like me, it’s difficult to go one day without some non-verbal reference to something. Banks, bars, fuel stations, grocery stores, and restaurants—all replete with a logo—a symbol that transcends its name or title into a purpose that ignites an emotion or some intuitive instinct not unlike Pavlov and his experiment with salivating dogs. How many years have you traveled and seen those golden arches along the roadside and felt a hankering for a juicy burger? The tall filling station signs also make us breathe a sigh of relief knowing that we are running on empty.

In a society that lives less and less by the word and more and more by pictures and images, it’s not difficult to understand the business of signs and the metaphorical and metonymical symbolic interaction system that goes with them. More specifically, symbols will be perceived as either similar (standing for something) or contiguous (connected to something it was once associated with or currently a part of). Consider the American flag, the Christian cross, or even the logo or jersey number of your favorite sports team or athlete—all point to the power of symbols and the possibilities associated with both positive and negative conformity to a community of believers. The family tree of symbolism extends back to our early ancestors, our Greek tales, prophets of Judeo-Christian traditions, folktales, and our pop culture. Consider the Iliad, the Odyssey, Jason and the Argonauts, Robin Hood, The Lone Ranger, Superman and Batman—all of them symbolic, socio-cultural representations throughout human history. While the empirical evolution of symbols can, and has been debated, they are known to be useful.

However, history has proven that we live, more and more, with undetermined symbols or symbolic ambiguities. Philosopher Jay Ogilvy described this postmodern slouch as a principal feature of a lack of transcendent purpose. He explained that deconstruction is the consequence of a lack of faith in progress and little access to advice from reliable mentors when it comes to making choices about our goals. Anthropologist Joseph Campbell further explained, “Inventions and the scientific method of research have so transformed human life that the long inherited, timeless universe of symbols has collapsed.” J.H. Plumb, in his 1974 book Disappearing Heroes, offered, “It is hard for us, bred on science and rationalism, to grasp how fearsome, how magical, the universe appeared to earlier societies. Heroes were necessary both as gods and as a part of a ritual that kept the external world secure and tolerable.”

It is our responsibility, then, to be called upon as heroic and, further, to commune as artists in creating and maintaining a symbolic hero system. Why? If what we do derives meaning from symbols, then the source of meaning for them is the source of meaning for our work and life! A contemporary mythical arc is the redemption of a failed society by heroes who rise above its institutional impotence. The character Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games or even Batman are examples of protagonists who exemplify the heroic impulse necessary to fulfill this archetype. One wears a mockingjay pin; the other a bat costume. Both bring symbolic gestures of strength and independence that holds particular meaning and further rooted in the existential idea of creating one’s destiny by relying on inner strength and overcoming obstacles through endurance.

We all need convictions (and symbolic ones at that) that give meaning to our life and enable us to find a place for ourselves in the larger universe. This sense of wider meaning is what raises us beyond mere “giving and receiving.” Would St. Paul have realized that he was a messenger of God if he had hung his identity on being a tent maker? Real meaning made up of inner certainties is often understood in the symbols that we purposefully seek or that take possession of us through our vocations.

As we dig deep into our past, it’s not just the time and its events that move us, but the patterns and images that represent it. Critics argue that symbolism is an antiquated approach to human progress. I disagree. It can be very progressive if we allow it to be. For our collective society, the symbol of a hero can assure us that someone will be there to help, to protect, to save. It is incumbant upon us, then, to acquire and shape our symbols and then take action--take aim--and thrust ourselves into a helping universe.

Copyright © by Brian A. Kinnaird

References and Suggested Reading:

Campbell, J. (1968). The hero with a thousand faces, 2 ed. Princeton University Press: New Jersey.

Kinnaird, B. (2009). Parallel Universe: A theatre for heroism. Watchman Books: Salina, KS.

Ogilvy, J. (1995). Living without a goal. Doubleday Press: New York.

Plumb, J.H. (1974). Disappearing heroes (14), 4. Horizon.

Womack, M. (2005). Symbols and meaning. AltaMira Press: California.