How I saved the World… but not by Myself

How I saved the world… but not by Myself By Mark Campbell In 2024, I wrote a book about Joy that changed everything for me and a lot of other people. Now it is the first day of the year 2050 and, because of that book, I feel like a child heading to a giant toy store. The lines on my face though tell a little different story and so do the heavy bags under my eyes, unless I am wearing my glasses. I have left the spectacles behind today so that I might take the rays of the sun directly into me along with the wonderful crispness of the morning air in this newly revitalized city. I will just have to remember to smile so that I do not scare small children. “Can I hold your face!” Did I hear that right? I look over and there is a small boy with a red toque on his head eagerly taking off his matching red mittens. He is beaming up at me as his mother struggles to regain her balance after being forced to stop so suddenly. She laughs and bends partly over the boy as she places her hand lightly on his shoulder. Her lithe body curls forward and then straightens up in a smile. “He must really like you!” She says after gathering her breath again. “I’m okay with it if you’re okay.” It is an unexpected offering but I will not refuse it since it is the young who have blossomed the most in this more connected world that we have become. As soon as I start to bend, my body reminds me that I will be ninety-two next month. I continue downwards anyway, through the expected pain in my hip and the unexpected pain in my shoulder until my knee touches the cold cement a foot away from the boy who immediately clamps both of his hands onto my temples. He stares first into one eye and I can feel his essence immediately. He is ancient and full of a mystery that pours into me through the left pupil upon which his gaze is fixed. He switches unexpectedly to the other eye and I am swept away by a giddiness that rushes up through my toes and my chest to the top of my head and sends me floating above the three of us. My right side tingles as healing hormones rush through my blood. This never gets old. He flips back and forth several times more, from one eye to the other in what feels like an eternity that ends much too quickly. He releases me and bows slightly with his head. “Thank you for sharing your essence with me. You are wonderful.” I return the nod. “The honor is all mine little one.” As soon as I say it, I want to correct myself but there is nothing to correct even though my body-mind senses that he is an ancient presence. I stand instead, only a little surprised that there is no pain and the movement is both smooth and strong. I have been renewed by his gift and my body-mind revels in the feeling of it as I look into the tear-filled eyes of his mother. It is always very moving to witness an interaction like this one. We exchange warm looks and nods as her essence briefly flows through mine and firmly connects my feet to the ground beneath me. Another gift. I continue along the sidewalk in wonderment of how much the world has changed in the past twenty-six years. There has not been a war or even a rumor of a war for over ten years now and I have not seen a homeless person in at least as long. Did I actually have a hand in this transformation? Can I truly say that without sounding too conceited, even to myself? I ponder the question for a while before I smile and say out loud “Yes I did!” It all began with that contest to explain how you would save the world. I remember being very excited to learn that so many others were focused on the same thing that had been plaguing me for many years and I knew exactly what I was going to do. I first wrote about what I was going to do then I actually went out and did it. I wrote a book in less than two months that explained how people could get the most joy out of their lives. The Guts of the Heart quickly became a New York Times best-seller and sold over eight million copies. In the book I laid out how it was possible to follow the beckoning of your heart towards joy while doing the best you could for the world around you. I went even further and showed that you could not do the best for the world around you without following the beckoning of your heart and the true scent of joy wherever it led. Naturally, people compared it with the works of Frederick Nietzche but they were only partially right in doing that. Although I do sense that Nietzche wanted people to experience as much joy as they could, I think he missed out on the biggest sources of joy and I showed that in the book. Even so, I don’t fault him since he inspired me and many others like me to pursue our joy. The problem was that our culture and almost all organized religions seemed to suggest that it was somehow wrong to derive joy and tangible benefits from caring for those around us. That was the key – learning how to access a deep and lasting joy by first caring for yourself and then engaging fully with the body-mind as you sought out the true essence of those around you using practices that focused on truth, vulnerability, and courage. Once these practices were revealed, people began to experience a true lasting joy that exceeded anything they had felt before and it was only accessible by sharing in the true essence of the other people around you. Immediately there were copycats who claimed they had a shortcut to this same joy. Some had a measured success but in time they all failed to achieve even a fraction of the joy that true practitioners were experiencing. As con artists attempted to game the system, they were either ignored or converted as their practices came too close to the real thing. But my book was only the beginning of the transformation. Soon many other books, movies, songs, and works of art exploded onto the scene with an impact that dwarfed the launch of my work. The book How to Have the Best Intimate Sex of Your Life sold over twenty million copies and was loosely based on the practices outlined in my book. Divorce rates dropped off only a year after the book came out while the porn industry suffered a total collapse two years after that. I was grateful to the author for both the positive changes she brought about in the world and the relative freedom her fame offered me as a past celebrity. How to Crush the Competition was the very unlikely name of a book that taught employers how transparency and care could facilitate a productive workplace with committed employees and fiercely loyal customers using some of the practices I had outlined. Companies who adopted the practices quickly outcompeted all others who refused to change. Again, there were those who tried to fake their way but they met with only marginal success after heavily investing with consultants who promised that they could guide them through a process of joy-washing as it came to be known. In the end, it became impossible to fake the personal rewards of the joy practices since they became so prominent and recognizable in the body as people got better at it. Healing and longevity quickly became the most noticeable and sought-after side effects but the actual personal embodied experience of joy was the biggest payoff that allowed the cultural movement to sweep the globe in less than fifteen years with an almost religious fervor. It turns out that the ancient religions were a paradox that took us close to the point of experiencing this same phenomenon while at the same time providing the impassable barrier that prevented us from getting there. How was it that a religion that held Love thy neighbour as thyself as the highest commandment could at the same time direct that you should not gain any personal reward in doing so? Because of this, we have been prevented from reaping the highest rewards of being human – experiencing a real and intense healing and empowering love with everyone else on earth. As I near the next corner, two young men embrace and then head their separate ways. “Don’t sell out!” the one says. The other replies “Yean man! Don’t sell out!” He then heads down the sidewalk towards me. I smile as I recognize the words as a reference to a practice that I helped to popularize. It sometimes feels like these practices have become part of a new religion but to me, it is much more like truth and science. I close my eyes and silently go through the steps. They flow through me now as one embodied experience: 1. Ask what came before the birth of the universe and what comes after death while dropping all of the stories that made you feel safe with this question and breathe deeply into the truth of the answer I don’t know while allowing the peace of that truth to flow up through you. 2. Turn your attention to the you that is receiving this mystery of everything and breathe into the truth of the mystery that is your own being while feeling the energy and joy there that is your essence. 3. Now experience everything and everyone around you in this way while allowing the joy and healing of their unique essence to permeate your own essence. The saying “Don’t sell out” came later as people used the term to refer to what was routinely marketed as joy all around us. Money, casual sex, and material possessions still have a magnetic pull even today although their marketing has dwindled to almost nothing. And yet the term is a reminder of the true, powerful, and lasting joy that is always available as a healing gift of the present moment. As I open my eyes, I notice that the young man has stopped two feet in front of me. He extends his right arm and I grasp his forearm as he grasps mine. He closes his eyes for a second and takes a deep breath before reopening them and staring warmly at me for a few moments. He smiles, releases me, nods his head, and moves on. I am renewed by his essence and feel a wrinkle or two straighten out on my face. Maybe I am not so scary looking after all.

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