I like reading Joseph Campbell. His writings have inspired me to explore my own beliefs and to questions them openly and honestly. I approach life differently than I did only a year ago. His observations on the Power of Myth pulled me away from the scattered and floundering beliefs that i thought I had into a more open and flowing way of thinking. 
  You see I am looking for a patterns, ever since reading a fictional book by Clive Barker called The Great and Secret Show I have wondered about a sort of background program in life, not a religious one, but symbols and meanings that transcend what I normally think and believe. Campbell identified this as being Myth. He says that "Myth's are the spiritual potentialities of the human life". Myth's transcend all religions and belief systems. "People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. 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 within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about, and that's what these clues help us to find within ourselves."
  Myths are clues. 

This is one of my favorite quotes by Campbell. I have heard this message from other writers, speakers, philosophers, psychologists, and others whom I respect and have studied. I simply choose to use his writings as a guide. I find that his message is present in so many different ways throughout my searching for meaning in my life. A spiritual teacher I love and respect named Chuck Chamberlain, who wrote a book called A New Pair of Glasses  was quoted as saying "What you are looking for, you are looking with." The answers are not outside of you, guidance may come from without, but the answers are within.