I see that Christopher Nolan will release an IMAX film based on Homer’s Odyssey. Love the epic tale, can’t wait to see it on the big screen. I hope Nolan Does Scylla and Charybdis right. Those two encapsulate much of humanity’s lifestyle and social ecology. We humans often face degrees of dilemma, or Sophie’s Choice, though only rarely, thankfully, with the highest degree akin to the dilemma as portrayed in that eponymous film or the deadly choice posed by Scylla and Charybdis.
But in lesser degrees, we’re always passing through a Messina Strait, a narrow passageway between two bad choices. In its simplest, the choice lies between using a paper towel to dry dishes or a dish towel, the former to be purchased and thrown away, thus threatening a forest, the latter to be washed with detergents that then enter the environment as polluting wastewater and also to be placed in a dryer after washing, necessitating a draw on the power grid and the personal expense of kilowatts listed on the monthly electric bill. Sophie’s Choice? Scylla and Charybdis? To the smallest degree at least.
Our Daily Lives
Strange how the brain/mind works, isn’t it? In its intricate aggregation of 86 billion neuron cells with nearly 100 trillion connections, my brain mixed thoughts of Odysseus’ encounters with Scylla and Charybdis with daily life, a war and a senile President. Oh! And throw in Odysseus’ exchange with Polyphemus, where he cleverly identified himself as Noman or No-Man or Nobody. So, as I was saying, my brain made a connection to everyday life and to choices between good and bad, good and good, and bad and bad, this last exemplified by Scylla and Charybdis and Sophie’s choice.
Our everyday experience is an ocean of such choices, mostly small with no tragic or long term consequences, but occasionally large and life-changing. Skipping a class on a single day is often inconsequential, but skipping multiple classes in a college semester can result in lower grades and even failure, changing the course of a life, say from being a medical doctor to being a middle school biology teacher. Or, inhaling that first line of cocaine might not mean much, but it might also mean a lifetime of addiction, a simple choice altering a life detrimentally.
And then there are the spur of the moment decisions that increase the degree of risk: Doing something unnecessary that jeopardizes life itself, like attempting to jump off a cruise ship, but landing instead on a lower deck—dead. That seems to be what happened on a Princess Cruise ship recently when woman jumped after an eight-day trip to the Caribbean. What was she thinking when she made the choice? Should I stay on board this giant ship for a last visit to the buffet or jump into Scylla to be swallowed by the ocean? Was it suicide or folly? * Whatever the motive, the consequence was immediate and deadly.
Putin as No-Odysseus
Two years ago Vladimir Putin put his country on a voyage through a narrow strait between the multi-headed Scylla of thousands of Ukrainian drones and missiles and the Charybdis of Ukrainian minefields, cluster bombs, and anti-ship missiles and sea drones. He made a choice that seems to have swallowed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russians sent into battle against the monster of modern warfare. And having made that choice that has decimated his army and war equipment and led to the exodus of more than one million young men as emigres, he continues to pilot his ship—or the ships the Ukrainians haven’t sunk— through that narrow strait of destruction and death.
That’s a between-a-rock-and-hard place decision that is affecting the Russian economy, Russian military prestige, and Russian lives. Odysseus was renowned for his wit and cleverness, both providing him with the skill to extricate himself from dangers. Putin seems to have neither as he continues to pilot his ship through perilous waters where even his borrowed North Korean soldiers are being lost to monsters of Ukrainian drones and Himars.
Nevertheless, Putin does have his Odysseus side. He’s killed off many of his detractors and rivals, though not in personal combat like Odysseus facing Penelope’s suitors, but by poisonings and strange coincidental falls from windows in multi-floor buildings. Putin can cleverly claim that nobody was responsible, but the deaths occurred undeniably.
Biden as No-Odysseus
Nothing in his term contrasts Biden and Odysseus more than the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The clever Odysseus conquered Troy with the ruse of the wooden horse. Biden had no clever plan to extricate America from Afghanistan to end the war, eschewing Trump’s threat to the Taliban—and to the Taliban leader’s very person and family—as a way to a peaceful withdrawal that retained an American presence and control of Bagram Air Base.
As of this writing, Biden is still in ostensible control of the ship of state, where he has allowed a many-headed Scylla to enter as masses of migrants numbering in the millions threatening to capsize local economies like NYC, which has had to spend billions of dollars on migrants devouring, Scylla-like, local resources. It’s a monster Biden chose to sail near, ignoring warnings by any and all Circes. Biden can claim that no one has been responsible--well maybe climate change-- and in fact, he would be right, because no one in his administration claims responsibility for the cartels' expansion, the drug deaths, the sex trafficking, the rapes, and murders by illegals.
Almost at the end of his voyage, he feels free to jeopardize his remaining crew and passengers with last-minute decisions. Oh! Well. We know that soon he will return home to Delaware fast asleep, transported just like the sleeping Odysseus the Phaeacians returned to Ithaca after a nightmare time away from home.
*https://nypost.com/2024/12/23/us-news/princess-cruises-passenger-dies-after-trying-to-jump-overboard-near-florida/
But in lesser degrees, we’re always passing through a Messina Strait, a narrow passageway between two bad choices. In its simplest, the choice lies between using a paper towel to dry dishes or a dish towel, the former to be purchased and thrown away, thus threatening a forest, the latter to be washed with detergents that then enter the environment as polluting wastewater and also to be placed in a dryer after washing, necessitating a draw on the power grid and the personal expense of kilowatts listed on the monthly electric bill. Sophie’s Choice? Scylla and Charybdis? To the smallest degree at least.
Our Daily Lives
Strange how the brain/mind works, isn’t it? In its intricate aggregation of 86 billion neuron cells with nearly 100 trillion connections, my brain mixed thoughts of Odysseus’ encounters with Scylla and Charybdis with daily life, a war and a senile President. Oh! And throw in Odysseus’ exchange with Polyphemus, where he cleverly identified himself as Noman or No-Man or Nobody. So, as I was saying, my brain made a connection to everyday life and to choices between good and bad, good and good, and bad and bad, this last exemplified by Scylla and Charybdis and Sophie’s choice.
Our everyday experience is an ocean of such choices, mostly small with no tragic or long term consequences, but occasionally large and life-changing. Skipping a class on a single day is often inconsequential, but skipping multiple classes in a college semester can result in lower grades and even failure, changing the course of a life, say from being a medical doctor to being a middle school biology teacher. Or, inhaling that first line of cocaine might not mean much, but it might also mean a lifetime of addiction, a simple choice altering a life detrimentally.
And then there are the spur of the moment decisions that increase the degree of risk: Doing something unnecessary that jeopardizes life itself, like attempting to jump off a cruise ship, but landing instead on a lower deck—dead. That seems to be what happened on a Princess Cruise ship recently when woman jumped after an eight-day trip to the Caribbean. What was she thinking when she made the choice? Should I stay on board this giant ship for a last visit to the buffet or jump into Scylla to be swallowed by the ocean? Was it suicide or folly? * Whatever the motive, the consequence was immediate and deadly.
Putin as No-Odysseus
Two years ago Vladimir Putin put his country on a voyage through a narrow strait between the multi-headed Scylla of thousands of Ukrainian drones and missiles and the Charybdis of Ukrainian minefields, cluster bombs, and anti-ship missiles and sea drones. He made a choice that seems to have swallowed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Russians sent into battle against the monster of modern warfare. And having made that choice that has decimated his army and war equipment and led to the exodus of more than one million young men as emigres, he continues to pilot his ship—or the ships the Ukrainians haven’t sunk— through that narrow strait of destruction and death.
That’s a between-a-rock-and-hard place decision that is affecting the Russian economy, Russian military prestige, and Russian lives. Odysseus was renowned for his wit and cleverness, both providing him with the skill to extricate himself from dangers. Putin seems to have neither as he continues to pilot his ship through perilous waters where even his borrowed North Korean soldiers are being lost to monsters of Ukrainian drones and Himars.
Nevertheless, Putin does have his Odysseus side. He’s killed off many of his detractors and rivals, though not in personal combat like Odysseus facing Penelope’s suitors, but by poisonings and strange coincidental falls from windows in multi-floor buildings. Putin can cleverly claim that nobody was responsible, but the deaths occurred undeniably.
Biden as No-Odysseus
Nothing in his term contrasts Biden and Odysseus more than the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The clever Odysseus conquered Troy with the ruse of the wooden horse. Biden had no clever plan to extricate America from Afghanistan to end the war, eschewing Trump’s threat to the Taliban—and to the Taliban leader’s very person and family—as a way to a peaceful withdrawal that retained an American presence and control of Bagram Air Base.
As of this writing, Biden is still in ostensible control of the ship of state, where he has allowed a many-headed Scylla to enter as masses of migrants numbering in the millions threatening to capsize local economies like NYC, which has had to spend billions of dollars on migrants devouring, Scylla-like, local resources. It’s a monster Biden chose to sail near, ignoring warnings by any and all Circes. Biden can claim that no one has been responsible--well maybe climate change-- and in fact, he would be right, because no one in his administration claims responsibility for the cartels' expansion, the drug deaths, the sex trafficking, the rapes, and murders by illegals.
Almost at the end of his voyage, he feels free to jeopardize his remaining crew and passengers with last-minute decisions. Oh! Well. We know that soon he will return home to Delaware fast asleep, transported just like the sleeping Odysseus the Phaeacians returned to Ithaca after a nightmare time away from home.
*https://nypost.com/2024/12/23/us-news/princess-cruises-passenger-dies-after-trying-to-jump-overboard-near-florida/
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