Not curating, just letting things spill out and pile on one another, is in many ways an easy option; curating well is tough, patient work.*
(Michael Bhaskar)

Joseph Campbell’s patented response to the disenchantment of modern life was: find your life’s true passion and follow it, follow the path that is no path: “Follow your bliss.” When you have the unmistakable experience of the Aha! then you’ll know you’re riding on the mystery.**
(Phil Cousineau)

‘Each person has a unique destiny,’ wrote John O’Donohue, ‘To be born is to be chosen.’^

For thousands of years this human understanding has been explored in myths and legends and stories of heroes and warriors because we feel it is closer to all of us than we know:

[the] will to be oneself is heroism.^^

In his latest book, Erwin McManus explores the way of the warrior defending this nomenclature on the basis that the person who wins the war within does not go to war without, connecting here with our title:

the greatest enemies of the peace within are worry and fear.*^

Curating the things of our lives then becomes a warrior’s craft, bringing shape to our existence in the direction of a unique destiny.

In her novel about a pandemic that removes the human race one by one until there is one person left, Mary Shelley comes to her realisation of what it is to be human, a wonderfully simple statement lying on the far side of complexity, and so, we might say, the expression of personal curation:

There is but one solution to the intricate riddle of life; too improve ourselves and contribute to the happiness of others.^*

The hero or protagonist or warrior is the person who realises they can never miss out as long as they are pursuing the path that is no path, that is, the path that does not exist without them

(*From Michael Bhaskar’s Curation.)
(**Phil Cousineau in his introduction to Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey.)
(^From John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us.)
(^^José Ortega y Gasset, quoted in Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey.)
(*^From Erwin McManus’ The Way of the Warrior.)
(^*Mary Shelley, quoted in Maria Popova’s Brain Pickings: Spring in a Pandemic.)