There are a few things that jump out as I begin thinking about what to say.

1. One of them is the concept of Community: the hero leaves home, is engaged in an incredibly exciting adventure, gains magical powers or insight … and is then expected to return to the hum-drum routines of everyday life in order to share his magical powers with the local Community.
   • Joseph Campbell, the author of Hero With A Thousand Faces and the incredibly sharp guy who documented this mythological construct after reading and comparing thousands of texts, believes that a hero who refuses to share his mystical knowledge with the Community (a responsibility which can come at great personal expense to the hero), has failed to complete his heroic journey.
   • After all, what kind of a hero helps … himself? Imagine a Superman who only cared about winning the heart of Lois Lane. Or a Michael Clayton who took the bribe rather than expose the corruption in U-North.
2. The second concept also has to do with refusal: Refusal of the Call. The hero simply says “why bother?” and continues playing Guitar Hero while the world falls apart out his window.
   • Campbell writes: “Refusal of the summons converts the adventure into its negative. Walled in boredom, hard work, or ‘culture,’ the subject loses the power of significant affirmative action and becomes a victim to be saved. His flowering world becomes a wasteland of dry stones and his life feels meaningless – even though, like King Minos, he may through titanic effort succeed in building an empire or renown. Whatever house he builds, it will be a house of death: a labyrinth of cyclopean walls to hide from him his minotaur. All he can do is create new problems for himself and await the gradual approach of his disintegration.”
   • That’s a pretty dire prognosis. Refusal of the call results in the “future” hero never realizing his full potential, doomed to a life of failure and regret.

Campbell’s system tells us that the home is the center of the hero’s world: it’s where he spent his formative years, it’s why he fights and strives against supernatural forces, and it’s the place he desperately needs to return to complete the story. A healthy, fulfilling home life has more power over our hero – whether it be Superman, Michael Clayton, or Bilbo Baggins – than the evil forces against which he strives.

The kids in this 8th grade class attend a well-respected Dallas private school focusing on an international perspective to education. Every one of them can speak three languages or more (French, English and Spanish), and each will have more opportunities than many of their peers in the Dallas public school system. But only if they decide to accept a highly personal and challenging call to adventure, work hard to achieve it, and give something back to their friends, family or local community.

We milled around for awhile, touring the multi-level dance floors and checking out the pricey VIP rooms, equipped with flat screen TVs, red velour couches and large balconies overlooking Main street in downtown Dallas. I told Lisa we were “living a short story” right then – the atmosphere was so strange and comical, and the four of us were so obviously fish out of water in the loud neon blare of the place.

Around 10:30 people started showing up, and the scene reminded me of a Sadie Hawkins dance in grade school – everyone was in their 20’s or so (except for our group – all of us pushing or having broken past 40), but instead of getting their groove on the crowd stood expectantly around the disco ball brightness of the dance floor, waiting for something to happen. Finally, after waiting for what seemed like an eternity, Lisa and I walked out onto the dance floor and started grooving.

And that was the tipping point – the entire place took our cue and erupted into hours of vapid, oversexed gyrating. At one point the go-go dancers came out with dollar bills stuffed into their skin-tight dance shorts, the word “S-E-X” spelled out in pink rhinestones on their butts in case we were somehow unable to receive the message being transmitted by the jiggling of their silicone-enhanced curves. I also vaguely remember a scene from the movie “You Got Served” being re-enacted, with a girl and guy performing an aggressive kind of mating ritual / dance-off right before our eyes, surrounded by a howling bunch of hooligans.

My right ear is still ringing from the booming drone of the house music, but knowing that we were able to show those young whippersnappers how to cut a rug made my month.