The Human Odyssey adds a substantial amount of new information about the Twelve Stages of Life.
In The Human Odyssey, I’ve extended the conversation about human development to include prebirth, birth, death, and the afterlife. It seemed necessary to me that I discuss what many cultures around the world have thought about the stages of life. That's why I added an extra chapter (beyond the twelve stages of life) on the afterlife. Mentioning the afterlife shouldn’t be seen as something flaky or New Age, but rather as something "cross-cultural." Going back to earliest recorded history, cultures have always had maps of the afterlife (for example, the Egyptians built much of their culture around their image of the afterlife). We ought not leave these out of a book on human development. The life cycle is a huge thing to try to get one’s arms around. The more perspectives we can provide, the better we’ll be able to understand this incredible adventure.
I'm very excited about the filmography I've created at the end of the book — 130 movie listings with annotations organized by stage of life. I’ve always been profoundly moved by certain movies. I’ve noticed that the best of them usually deal with the human life span in some way (for example, Orson Welles' Citizen Kane takes us from his childhood to his death in old age). Many of the great films focus on a specific stage of life, like adolescence. Some examples include: Romeo and Juliet , Rebel without A Cause, and Westside Story (which totally blew me away as an eleven year old). I'd like to see people read a chapter from The Human Odyssey, watch a movie on that stage, and then talk about it among friends and/or family.
How should I relate to The Human Odyssey?
I wrote The Human Odyssey because I wanted people to see the big picture of our journey through life, and I wanted them to begin to care about the stages of life in a proactive way. Each person has all twelve stages of life within them -- some of them have been wounded by negative past experiences and need healing. We all know people who are in the different stages of life -- they also need care and support from us -- the infant son that needs human touch, the nephew who is having trouble learning at school, the friend at midlife who just got downsized at work. Our community is represented by all twelve stages -- and we need to care for the individuals in it who are at each stage -- our abused elders, our adolescents at risk, our toddlers who need to be protected from dangerous toys. I hope that people will read the book and then be moved to take positive actions that can transform human lives at each stage of development.
Article comments
1 - Natalie Bennett
This article has been selected for syndication to Advance.net , which is affiliated with newspapers around the United States, and to Boston.com. Nice work!