Jan
11
Travel
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The numbers 17 and 20 are meaningful to me. The number 17 is the number of states I have visited in the US. The number 20 is the number of countries I have visited in the world. This year I plan to increase this number to around 30. I leave for Costa Rica in late February for three months and will head south to South America after that.
I plan to come back to the US after three months to see my family, refresh supplies, etc. I will then head out to Far East to stay in the Philippines for a few months, my birthplace. I’m also planning to travel to Thailand, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and perhaps Fiji.
As you can see, I love to travel. The experience is priceless, educational and eye opening. There’s nothing quite like it. There are however many misconceptions about travel. The first one is that you need a lot of money to travel. Not necessarily true, airfares can be expensive, but not always. Look for deals online. Do your research.
Once you get to your destination, there are many options for traveling cheap, or shoud I say inexpensive. I suggest to travel like a local. Most of the time it is safe, but not always the case. Use your better judgement.
Another misconception is that travel is glamorous. It can be, but most of the time it isn’t. There is nothing glamorous about traveling inside a hot stifling bus between San Jose, Costa Rica and Tamarindo for over six hours. Nothing glamorous about being swarmed alive by 20 thousand mosquitoes in the Philippines.
I’m exaggerating, but there is a degree of truth to this. That is why you bring insect repellants. It’s part of the education. You will learn to cope like the locals do. Besides having these inconveniences, it is all worth the experience. Just think of the people you’ll meet and the cultures you’ll experience. Most importantly, you will learn more about yourself.
Jan
3
The Odyssey
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The Odyssey is the story of the homecoming of another of the great Greek heroes at Troy, Odysseus (Ulysses). Unlike Achilles, Odysseus is not famous for his great strength or bravery, but for his ability to deceive and trick (it is Odysseus’s idea to take Troy by offering the citizens a large wooden horse filled, unbeknownst to the Trojans, with Greek soldiers). He is the anthropos polytropos , the “man of many ways,” or the “man of many tricks.”
His homecoming has been delayed for ten years because of the anger of the gods; finally, in the tenth year, he is allowed to go home. He hasn’t been misspending his time, though; for most of the ten years he has been living on an island with the goddess Kalypso, who is madly in love with him. Odysseus, like Achilles, is offered a choice: he may either live on the island with Kalypso and be immortal like the gods, or he may return to his wife and his country and be mortal like the rest of us. He chooses to return, and much of the rest of the work is a long exposition on what it means to be “mortal.”
If the Odyssey has a discernible theme, it is the nature of mortal life, why any human being would, if offered the chance to be a god, still choose to be mortal. This choice becomes particularly problematic when Odysseus, in Book XI, meets the ghost of Achilles in the Underworld; Odysseus remarks to Achilles how all the shades of the dead must worship and serve Achilles, but Achilles replies that he would rather be the meanest and most obscure slave of the poorest landholder than be the most famous of the dead.
If being dead is so awful, what is it about being human that makes up for the infinite suffering that attends our deaths? As part of this question concerning the nature of human life, much of the book deals with the nature of human civilization and human savagery. The question also deepens in the latter half of the poem; while the first half of the epic deals with the question of the value of a mortal life, the last half of the epic introduces the question of the value of an anonymous human life. What value can be attached to a life that will be forgotten at its conclusion?
Hmmm, interesting predicament for Ulysses. What would you have done? Would you have gone home and be with family or perhaps stayed with Kalypso and be like the gods? A tough choice for any man especially if Kalypso is a goddess in every sense of the word! This year is going to be intriguingly exciting for me. I start my own Oddysey in late February. Will there be a Kalypso waiting for me or will I long for home? A lifetime of education indeed, not just about distant lands, cultures and people, but about myself.