There are few things sadder in life than seeing a young person who has no dreams, who has stopped dreaming or worse does not know how to dream. The fear that money will wreck a child’s drive, or their search for personal meaning, or their search for their true self is one that harks back to the ancient Greeks. The dangerous first stop on the travel home (to one’s real self) by Odysseus fully supplies a narcotic that makes the sailors, who were so motivated to get home, start to believe they already are home. That they have every THING they need.
Off course they forget where they were going and what they longed for. They confuse “stagnation” with flow. They have no dreams. Rather than search for their real home (self) they forget. Michael Goldberg[1] suggests that the resignation of the Lotus Eaters is more than woeful - it is a deadly sin that the early Christian monastics called accedia, i.e. sloth, lethargy, discouragement. Perhaps it is this ancient fear that fosters parents to fret about money and lethargy in their children. Rather than provide their children the tools needed to visit and than leave the island of the Lotus Eaters they try to arrange it so that the children will never get anywhere near that seductive island of false contentment. In that scenario the tools needed are neither provided nor tested - and perhaps worst of all - the children don’t launch on their own odyssey and only the parents are able to play the role of Odysseus. [1] Travels with Odysseus: Uncommon Wisdom from Homer’s Odyssey (2005) Comments are closed.
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