Latest / Being Different Together / #33 - Why The Odyssey Still Hits So Hard: Archetypes, War, and the Search for Home

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#33 - Why The Odyssey Still Hits So Hard: Archetypes, War, and the Search for Home · Being Different Together

0:08
SPEAKER_05: Welcome to Being Different Together, the podcast for people who want to make the world a better place, but no, they can't do it alone.
0:17
SPEAKER_04: I'm Dr.
0:18
SPEAKER_04: Kelly Brady, acupuncturist, psychotherapist, and certified dialogue therapist.
0:22
SPEAKER_05: And I'm Nissa Hanger, massage therapist, aromatherapist, coach, and real dialogue specialist.
0:29
SPEAKER_04: Together we'll explore how conversations can improve relationships, make work more joyful, and spark healing for ourselves and our communities.
0:37
SPEAKER_05: And listen, we don't shy away from the hard conversations.
0:41
SPEAKER_05: In fact, we welcome them.
0:43
SPEAKER_05: This isn't about being right.
0:45
SPEAKER_04: It's about being different together.
0:56
SPEAKER_05: Hello, hello, everyone.
0:58
SPEAKER_05: Welcome back to episode number 33 of being different together.
1:07
SPEAKER_05: And uh today, my friends, we're going on an Odyssey.
1:14
SPEAKER_05: Oh, we saw the Odyssey over the weekend.
1:16
SPEAKER_05: And so we figured we would talk about it because we keep talking about it.
1:21
SPEAKER_05: Well, might as well just press record.
1:25
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, and I mean it's it's an it was it's like um the Odyssey is such a great archetypal story.
1:32
SPEAKER_04: Um it hits on so many themes.
1:35
SPEAKER_04: It's almost too big to talk about.
1:37
SPEAKER_04: Which gives me so much respect for Is it like nobody talks about Bruno?
1:50
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
1:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, why not?
1:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:58
SPEAKER_05: No, I mean there is there is so much just to to not digress any further.
2:03
SPEAKER_05: There there is so much to talk about with the Odyssey.
2:09
SPEAKER_04: Well, oh my gosh.
2:11
SPEAKER_04: There's so many.
2:12
SPEAKER_04: It's the archetype its the the whole the whole story and then the history behind the story and and then all of the stories within the story.
2:23
SPEAKER_04: There's a there's a I mean, clearly and just you know There's a lot to unpack, but I I just was thinking that it would be a great thing to do a an episode about it.
2:33
SPEAKER_04: First of all, because it's fresh in in our minds.
2:35
SPEAKER_04: We just went over the weekend.
2:37
SPEAKER_04: S secondly, it's big in our culture right now.
2:40
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I've been talking to clients and friends and it seems like some of the first question is, have you seen the Odyssey yet?
2:46
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's and you know, I haven't had an experience of try like I had a I saw a client yesterday who told me that they were gonna drive like 90 minutes in one direction to go catch it at an IMAX on the day that the client was seeing me because you know, they were like, there are no tickets available locally.
3:03
SPEAKER_04: There's not one IMAX ticket available on the day that we're recording this podcast in Tampa.
3:08
SPEAKER_05: Wow.
3:09
SPEAKER_05: Wow.
3:10
SPEAKER_05: I know for Thursday.
3:11
SPEAKER_05: For Thursday.
3:13
SPEAKER_05: Like even in the afternoon?
3:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, isn't that crazy?
3:16
SPEAKER_05: That is.
3:16
SPEAKER_05: I know.
3:18
SPEAKER_05: That is very crazy.
3:20
SPEAKER_04: Um so I mean, clearly it's a box office smash in a world.
3:28
SPEAKER_04: Um but I think that's great because it's it's it's uh such qu I mean, in my opinion, it was just such a quality film.
3:36
SPEAKER_04: I don't think I've ever really seen a film like it.
3:39
SPEAKER_05: No.
3:40
SPEAKER_04: In terms of the visual imagery.
3:42
SPEAKER_04: I mean, if I were just to start there, what what they what the what the director was able to capture, I guess it was filmed in 70 millimeter.
3:50
SPEAKER_04: There's only one theater in the state of Florida that's playing it in 70 millimeter, by the way.
3:55
SPEAKER_04: It's down in South Florida.
3:56
SPEAKER_04: I learned this too from another person.
3:58
SPEAKER_04: I thought we s no no no, it says it, but it's not that's not the one.
4:03
SPEAKER_05: This is like it's like I didn't I honestly before any of this, I didn't even know going to the movies was this complicated.
4:10
SPEAKER_04: First of all, they got that Coke machine at AMC.
4:12
SPEAKER_04: It gives you like 150,000 choices.
4:15
SPEAKER_04: I'm just like Coke, Diet Coke.
4:17
SPEAKER_05: Oh my god, maybe every soda in the world can be it's basically like it it's it's almost like on Star Trek when he goes to the computer and says Earl Grey, hot.
4:29
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
4:30
SPEAKER_05: You know, it's like it'll give you whatever you want.
4:32
SPEAKER_05: I had not been to the movies and I don't definitely before the pandemic.
4:37
SPEAKER_04: Right.
4:38
SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, we went and saw Devil Wars product too.
4:40
SPEAKER_05: We did go that yeah, we broke the seal of the major movie theater.
4:45
SPEAKER_05: We had commercial theater.
4:46
SPEAKER_05: We had to do that.
4:47
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we've been going to the local Tampa Theater, which is like our antique.
4:52
SPEAKER_04: Antique boutique, oh yeah, cool, independent, small theater that we love to go to.
4:58
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
4:58
SPEAKER_04: And they play a bunch of weird stuff and mostly some first-round stuff that's really good, but I mean, and it's just a really cool location.
5:04
SPEAKER_04: If you come to Tampa, you must go.
5:06
SPEAKER_05: Oh, you gotta go to the Tampa Theater.
5:07
SPEAKER_05: They're restoring it right now.
5:09
SPEAKER_05: Oh did you know that?
5:10
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.
5:11
SPEAKER_05: Pretty awesome.
5:12
SPEAKER_05: Totally awesome.
5:13
SPEAKER_05: Um yeah, I had not been to the movies in I don't even know how long.
5:19
SPEAKER_05: And we did go see The Devil Where's Prada a couple weeks ago.
5:22
SPEAKER_05: Apparently, we only go and see Anne Hathaway movies in the big movie theater.
5:27
SPEAKER_05: We're two for two on that one.
5:28
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
5:30
SPEAKER_05: She's had a busy summer.
5:31
SPEAKER_04: She's she's having a busy part of her career right now for sure.
5:35
SPEAKER_05: But um, yeah, it's so strange.
5:39
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I I could just go on and on about the strangeness of going to the movies now, which is you know not not the topic at hand.
5:46
SPEAKER_05: But but it is kind of because I mean I think that there's there's well it is kind of yes.
5:56
SPEAKER_05: It kind of is.
5:57
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
5:58
SPEAKER_05: You want to explain?
6:00
SPEAKER_03: Maybe in a minute.
6:02
SPEAKER_05: So when you I go okay, I remember when they opened the like what what what was it called near my house?
6:10
SPEAKER_05: What was that one on Van Dyke called that turned into the coals or the hospital?
6:14
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
6:15
SPEAKER_05: I can't remember which part of that that shopping center.
6:17
SPEAKER_05: Oh, yeah, it was a big theater.
6:19
SPEAKER_04: It was over the it wasn't the veterans.
6:21
SPEAKER_04: No, it was the veterans.
6:22
SPEAKER_04: I know, because I went to that theater a lot too.
6:24
SPEAKER_05: But it was uh Hollywood 20?
6:26
SPEAKER_05: Hollywood 20.
6:27
SPEAKER_05: It was Hollywood 20.
6:28
SPEAKER_05: They had 20 theaters.
6:30
SPEAKER_05: I had a bunch of friends that work there, um, and then it closed down and they were like, Yeah, everybody was stealing from the cash drawer.
6:38
SPEAKER_05: But yeah, no, there was there were actually people in the box office.
6:42
SPEAKER_05: You had to buy your tickets in person, you had to wait in line, buy tickets in person.
6:46
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
6:47
SPEAKER_05: I mean, none of that is the case anymore.
6:50
SPEAKER_03: No.
6:50
SPEAKER_05: You've got to buy your tickets online, you gotta reserve your seats.
6:53
SPEAKER_05: I mean, the the seats have really upgraded.
6:56
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
6:57
SPEAKER_05: Um, and then the soda machine is is bananas.
7:00
SPEAKER_04: The soda machine's crazy.
7:03
SPEAKER_05: I've also never been in a movie having flashbacks to um high school English.
7:08
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, when's the first time you read the Odyssey?
7:11
SPEAKER_04: Do you remember?
7:12
SPEAKER_05: I do remember because it was a formative memory for me.
7:15
SPEAKER_05: Um, I think about it.
7:17
SPEAKER_05: I think about reading the Odyssey every time we go to Cocoa Beach.
7:20
SPEAKER_05: Oh.
7:21
SPEAKER_04: Because my dad's perfect with all those vistas of the sea and everything.
7:25
SPEAKER_05: Oh my god.
7:26
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I just remember with with my friend Maytal.
7:29
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
7:29
SPEAKER_05: Um Hi Maytal.
7:31
SPEAKER_05: Hi, Maythall.
7:32
SPEAKER_05: We she would always go with us to the beach.
7:34
SPEAKER_05: She's like a surrogate sister for sure.
7:36
SPEAKER_05: And um, my dad would often book the week um at the end of summer, like the last week of summer, he would book for the beach.
7:45
SPEAKER_05: And so uh we had to finish our summer reading.
7:49
SPEAKER_05: The Odyssey was summer reading before our senior year, and so I just remember sitting on that porch reading the Odyssey, and Maytal's reading the Odyssey, and we're talking about it, and we're talking about being Odysseus out on the ocean while we can see the the Atlantic and the sunrise.
8:04
SPEAKER_05: And I mean, epic is the word that comes to mind.
8:09
SPEAKER_05: I know.
8:09
SPEAKER_04: I've been thinking this really silly, like as you know, things get stuck in my head.
8:14
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
8:15
SPEAKER_04: This is what's been stuck in my head.
8:16
SPEAKER_04: The Odyssey put the ep in epic.
8:19
SPEAKER_04: It makes no sense.
8:20
SPEAKER_04: Why is it stuck in my head?
8:22
SPEAKER_04: Because you just want to say it.
8:24
SPEAKER_04: It's so silly.
8:26
SPEAKER_03: It put the ep in epic.
8:29
SPEAKER_05: And so yeah, I'm like, I'm simult I'm watching the Odyssey, thinking about it, and simultaneously having flashbacks to reading it in Cocoa Beach, and then sitting in Mr.
8:38
SPEAKER_05: Fairweather's classroom as he was explaining to us what was actually going on in the plot.
8:43
SPEAKER_05: Because of course I didn't understand a whole lot of it.
8:46
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it can be a little difficult reading the poem.
8:51
SPEAKER_05: Totally.
8:51
SPEAKER_05: So I also just remember sitting in I can almost remember where I'm sitting in his class and the way that he would lecture, and then he would very you know very much in I felt very engaged in the book.
9:02
SPEAKER_05: I still have my copy.
9:04
SPEAKER_04: Do you?
9:04
SPEAKER_04: I do.
9:05
SPEAKER_04: That's amazing.
9:05
SPEAKER_04: I'd love to see it.
9:06
SPEAKER_05: We're going to the beach in a couple weeks, I'm bringing it.
9:09
SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's a great idea.
9:10
SPEAKER_04: I love that idea.
9:11
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, this thing of like being on the ocean and so, anyways.
9:15
SPEAKER_04: So you were senior in high school when you read it?
9:17
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
9:18
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
9:18
SPEAKER_04: I think I might have been a a sophomore.
9:21
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
9:23
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think I might have been a sophomore in high school.
9:27
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
9:28
SPEAKER_04: When I read it.
9:29
SPEAKER_04: And I had one wonderful English teacher.
9:32
SPEAKER_04: I had a couple of wonderful English teachers in high school.
9:34
SPEAKER_04: I was lucky.
9:36
SPEAKER_04: They would get very excited about literature, you know.
9:38
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
9:39
SPEAKER_05: Passionate.
9:39
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
9:40
SPEAKER_04: Passionate.
9:41
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
9:41
SPEAKER_04: They were those kind of English teachers that would wander the hall reciting Shakespeare to one another.
9:46
SPEAKER_04: Oh.
9:46
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
9:47
SPEAKER_03: Interesting.
9:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
9:48
SPEAKER_04: May maybe maybe they were on the spectrum thinking back on it now.
9:56
SPEAKER_04: Because there was a level of quirk in the English department at Coral Springs High School that was was really interesting, but very entertaining for me.
10:05
SPEAKER_04: And um they really kind of helped bring it to life, I think, in that way, make it more relatable, because in the old in the older English it's hard, it's harder.
10:16
SPEAKER_04: It was harder for me at that time, particularly, to like understand it and relate.
10:19
SPEAKER_04: It's like reading Shakespeare for the first time.
10:21
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
10:21
SPEAKER_04: To get through the linguistic changes that have happened.
10:24
SPEAKER_04: There's that part of my mind that has to switch over into learning how to read those the older form of English.
10:29
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
10:29
SPEAKER_04: It takes a minute, you know, like maybe half of a book.
10:32
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
10:32
SPEAKER_04: Half of a Shakespeare play, half of a I I guess what I had what I was recently reminded of about the Odyssey was that it wasn't written.
10:39
SPEAKER_04: It was originally a song.
10:41
SPEAKER_05: Right.
10:42
SPEAKER_04: Because it was because of the time in antiquity, right?
10:45
SPEAKER_04: It was like the time of the Trojan War was 1200 BCE.
10:50
SPEAKER_04: And they say that this poem was being sung sometime around 6700 BCE, and then eventually so it had been sung all along.
10:58
SPEAKER_04: It was probably sung by a bard for 600 years.
11:01
SPEAKER_04: First of all, that was going to the movies in 1200 BCE.
11:06
SPEAKER_04: Let's just stop there for a second.
11:09
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
11:10
SPEAKER_04: That was going to the movies.
11:11
SPEAKER_04: Listening to the bard.
11:12
SPEAKER_04: You're in a pub and the bard is singing.
11:15
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
11:15
SPEAKER_04: Or you're in a you know, you're in the town square.
11:18
SPEAKER_04: In the amphitheater.
11:19
SPEAKER_04: And the bard is singing.
11:21
SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
11:21
SPEAKER_04: Um I mean, what a different experience of maybe these this was your English teachers reciting Shakespeare down the line.
11:29
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I'm thinking about it.
11:30
SPEAKER_04: It's v incredibly archetypal.
11:32
SPEAKER_04: Um you know, the the well, the bard, the storyteller, the Yeah um yeah.
11:37
SPEAKER_04: Going from town to town.
11:38
SPEAKER_04: Right.
11:39
SPEAKER_04: So I guess Homer wrote it down.
11:41
SPEAKER_04: I don't really know much about Homer himself, other than Homer wrote it down.
11:45
SPEAKER_04: Homer wrote down the Iliad, Homer wrote down the Odyssey.
11:49
SPEAKER_04: I mean, you know, or it's credited with it exactly.
11:51
SPEAKER_04: You know, could have been a Homer and a amalgamation of probably a lot of people.
11:56
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
11:57
SPEAKER_04: Right.
11:57
SPEAKER_04: And um and then the translation survives, it gets retranslated a couple times.
12:02
SPEAKER_04: Um currently, I guess the translation that was used for the film was uh a more recent was the first female that translated.
12:09
SPEAKER_05: Female that had translated the Odyssey, yeah.
12:13
SPEAKER_05: The other thing that I'm having flashbacks to, I'm just kind of thinking about it now, is um so yeah, that and that was like beginning of senior year was reading the Odyssey and then other things.
12:24
SPEAKER_05: And then at some point, I don't know where in the senior year we got into Joseph Campbell and the hero with the thousand faces.
12:30
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
12:31
SPEAKER_05: But I spent the summer after senior year reading all of his stuff.
12:36
SPEAKER_05: And a lot of that harkens back to the Odyssey, which I think is sort of the the archetype of the hero's journey.
12:44
SPEAKER_05: Very much.
12:45
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
12:46
SPEAKER_05: So I'm also kind of yeah, thinking about all of all of that as I'm watching it.
12:52
SPEAKER_05: And it's I keep being like, it's the archetype of the archetype.
12:56
SPEAKER_05: You know, it's like it's like the quintessential it is literally uh I mean literally, it's the quintessential story.
13:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
13:09
SPEAKER_05: At least in w in the Western culture.
13:11
SPEAKER_04: Well, I think it is because it's it's a story in which one of the central themes is conflict and war.
13:17
SPEAKER_04: Right.
13:18
SPEAKER_04: And like the this is this is this is what it is.
13:21
SPEAKER_04: I mean, we took we spent the first few episodes of the podcast really just talking about how we have this installed enemy button.
13:29
SPEAKER_04: Like it's it's really part of our issue as a species.
13:33
SPEAKER_04: Right.
13:34
SPEAKER_04: Is that the way we make enemies out of each other, and then the way we kill each other for it, and then how our civilization either moves forward or backward, kind of based in that conflict.
13:44
SPEAKER_04: It's like, you know, if if if you if you drink the Kool-Aid of, say, the real dialogue model, the Kool-Aid there is that healthy conflict can lead to transformation where both people learn about one another.
13:57
SPEAKER_04: It it could be possible that unhealthy conflict does the same, but causes more damage.
14:03
SPEAKER_04: I mean, maybe people are still learning about one another in unhealthy conflict, but it's a much more dangerous way to get there.
14:09
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I I think that the working philosophy, well, and I'm pretty deep in that real dialogue model.
14:14
SPEAKER_04: So I do think that kind of the working philosophy might be if you were just to have conflict in this way, then you could learn, but in these other ways you don't.
14:22
SPEAKER_04: I'm not so sure I agree with that.
14:24
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I think we might learn from unhealthy conflict retrospectively.
14:27
SPEAKER_04: Sure.
14:28
SPEAKER_04: And we may even learn from it wh while we're in it, because the story of Odysseus is I was watching this film.
14:35
SPEAKER_04: Part of what really struck me was his own reckoning with who he became during war and how he had to recover from that.
14:44
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
14:44
SPEAKER_04: You know, his journey home is it was like his recovery from the war.
14:47
SPEAKER_04: Right.
14:48
SPEAKER_04: Really?
14:48
SPEAKER_04: Like the the though those motifs, I didn't get those motifs when I was a kid.
14:54
SPEAKER_04: No.
14:54
SPEAKER_04: I was much more interested in him um, you know, stabbing the eye of the Cyclops.
15:00
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
15:01
SPEAKER_04: Right?
15:02
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
15:03
SPEAKER_04: How is he gonna get past the sirens?
15:05
SPEAKER_04: And how's he right?
15:06
SPEAKER_04: And how you know, and him tying in the what's this whole relationship with him and Calypso?
15:10
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Calypso, seven years.
15:12
SPEAKER_04: I thought he wanted to go home.
15:13
SPEAKER_04: He he maybe he didn't.
15:15
SPEAKER_04: Mm-hmm.
15:16
SPEAKER_04: So there was all there was I I think I saw well, I mean, I saw it with a 57-year-old's eyes.
15:21
SPEAKER_04: I think it's part of that dog.
15:23
SPEAKER_04: And so I have a different and also it was so big and loud that it really kind of like I was in a trance.
15:31
SPEAKER_04: This is the thing about being in front of screens.
15:34
SPEAKER_04: Can we just make a little sidebar?
15:36
SPEAKER_05: You want a sidebar about screens?
15:37
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, let's do it.
15:38
SPEAKER_04: The way that the images flicker in front of the eyes, it puts it puts the human, it puts us in a trance.
15:43
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
15:43
SPEAKER_04: So you're very suggestible when you're and when anything's on a screen in front of you, you're you're so much more suggestible than you are if it's in any other way because of the flickering of the lights.
15:52
SPEAKER_04: It's interesting.
15:53
SPEAKER_04: It really does induce mimic fire.
15:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it really does induce a a little bit of an altered state.
15:58
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
15:58
SPEAKER_04: Like if you think about how you feel about when you sit in Doom Scroll for half an hour.
16:02
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
16:03
SPEAKER_05: How I feel or how I feel about it.
16:05
SPEAKER_04: How you feel about it, but also how your body physically feels.
16:07
SPEAKER_04: It's like you're in some liminal space.
16:09
SPEAKER_04: Oh, and it's and then I'll be like, all right, I got it.
16:11
SPEAKER_04: But let me just scroll one more.
16:14
SPEAKER_04: It's kind of like brains, like you're kind of like a zombie.
16:16
SPEAKER_04: It's really weird.
16:17
SPEAKER_04: It's like you're I I'm consuming, but I'm not really exactly feeling it's a really interesting liminal space to get caught in a screen.
16:25
SPEAKER_04: So a movie, I think um especially something with these kind of really big images and the loud drumming, and I really felt like I was, you know, hypnotized for a couple of hours.
16:38
SPEAKER_04: And and I think that the um the majesty that the director was able to to accomplish with the cinematography, those huge scenes of the boats, the water, the size of the book.
16:54
SPEAKER_04: Like I mean, the the I mean he really was able to capture these images that are epic.
17:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
17:00
SPEAKER_04: It's like you know when you're trying to take a picture.
17:03
SPEAKER_04: Like right now, I'm kind of working on my website a little bit.
17:05
SPEAKER_04: Don't go to my website yet.
17:07
SPEAKER_05: Well, yeah, but by the time that's gonna be a good idea.
17:09
SPEAKER_04: But anyway, it it probab it might not be.
17:11
SPEAKER_04: But anyway, I kind of been working on my website a little bit, and part of that is I'm trying to get some pictures of my office to be able to intersperse in different places because my off I think my office is so beautiful.
17:18
SPEAKER_05: It's totally nice.
17:19
SPEAKER_04: Trying to capture a picture of the whole office is completely impossible.
17:22
unknown: No.
17:23
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
17:24
SPEAKER_04: How did he get that image with that horse?
17:27
SPEAKER_04: How did he do it?
17:28
SPEAKER_05: Well, he had more space than you do in your office.
17:30
SPEAKER_04: And how was that camera?
17:32
SPEAKER_04: Can you imagine?
17:34
SPEAKER_04: The lens size?
17:36
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
17:37
SPEAKER_04: I mean I I don't know, man.
17:40
SPEAKER_04: Like it's I find the whole thing there's an element of magic, I think, is the other thing.
17:45
SPEAKER_04: It's like when some someone's telling a really good story.
17:48
SPEAKER_04: It's it's kind of magical.
17:49
SPEAKER_04: I'm enthralled by it.
17:50
SPEAKER_04: I had that feeling in the in the film too.
17:52
SPEAKER_04: So anyway, the screen thing is really hypnotic.
17:55
SPEAKER_04: So I just feel like some of those images got in me in a way.
17:59
SPEAKER_04: Sometimes a movie can really move me.
18:02
SPEAKER_04: A movie.
18:04
SPEAKER_05: Whoa.
18:05
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, no, I you know, there was I think early high school.
18:11
SPEAKER_04: I didn't feel that way when I watched Rec, but it's great.
18:15
SPEAKER_05: You know what I mean?
18:16
SPEAKER_05: I well, and I have um I have been when I was in high school, I there was a period of time that I thought I wanted to be a filmmaker.
18:30
SPEAKER_05: I was very I was very in I don't know what they what you would call the style of the movies in the 90s, late 90s, early 2000s.
18:40
SPEAKER_05: Um, like I'm thinking of what's the guy, M.
18:43
SPEAKER_05: Night Shyamalan.
18:44
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
18:45
SPEAKER_05: You know, it's I feel like in Magnolia, and I feel like there there was like these series of movies where I don't know, there was just a certain quality in them.
18:53
SPEAKER_05: And and what it is is that feeling moved is that at the end of the movie, I am a different person.
19:00
SPEAKER_05: Right.
19:01
SPEAKER_05: And I loved that, and I was so fascinated by the art and I even auditioned for the video production program at Blake, and you know, with the zero experience in that.
19:13
SPEAKER_05: That's cool.
19:14
SPEAKER_05: Compared to the poetry that I had written or whatever.
19:18
SPEAKER_05: I got into the creative writing program, I did not get into the video production program.
19:23
SPEAKER_04: It's not too late.
19:25
SPEAKER_05: It's not too late.
19:26
SPEAKER_05: And it w it's sort of interesting just to reflect on that.
19:29
SPEAKER_05: We're all our own video producers now with our freaking cell phones.
19:32
SPEAKER_05: And depending on how you engage with social media and YouTube and all of that sort of thing.
19:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we all have cameras now.
19:40
SPEAKER_05: I think I ultimately I didn't want to spend that much time in front of a computer.
19:44
SPEAKER_04: I understand why.
19:46
SPEAKER_05: You know, I've done some video editing.
19:48
SPEAKER_05: Um, it is not how I want to spend my time.
19:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I totally get it.
19:52
SPEAKER_05: But I have a um I have great respect for the craft.
19:57
SPEAKER_05: And um yeah, I feel like this movie kind of felt a little bit more like the the the way they used to make movies.
20:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
20:04
SPEAKER_04: Well his use of I thought Nolan's use of it was the judicious use of CGI was was pretty great.
20:10
SPEAKER_04: And I I don't think that there was much.
20:12
SPEAKER_04: I mean, I think the Cyclops was like a big puppet.
20:14
SPEAKER_04: I've done a little, you know, I haven't done much research about the film itself.
20:17
SPEAKER_04: A little bit.
20:18
SPEAKER_05: No, it doesn't seem and you know what the like there I mean, of course there were gonna be some fighting scenes, it's a war.
20:24
SPEAKER_05: Right.
20:25
SPEAKER_05: Um but there wasn't, you know, like like Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, like where it's just all of these CGI people fighting each other.
20:34
SPEAKER_05: Like I didn't I don't remember witnessing a whole lot of like that, you know, there was definitely like when they took over Troy or whatever, right?
20:43
SPEAKER_05: Um all the hand-to-hand combat scenes.
20:45
SPEAKER_05: But I think those were actual people.
20:46
SPEAKER_04: I think they were too, and that's what I that's what I recall reading about the film.
20:49
SPEAKER_04: So I mean, I just think it was a spectacular film.
20:52
SPEAKER_04: I I'm very impressed with it.
20:54
SPEAKER_04: And um and I love the cultural movement that's sprung up around it right now.
20:58
SPEAKER_04: I think particularly, I'll speak as an American, I think we we as an Americans, I don't want to speak for all Americans, but I can say I needed it.
21:07
SPEAKER_04: America is at war a lot.
21:10
SPEAKER_04: America's been at war a lot since I've been born.
21:13
SPEAKER_04: You know, I remember Vietnam.
21:15
SPEAKER_04: I, you know, I like I was it's one of the first memories I have of watching TV is watching the fall of Saigon on CBS.
21:22
SPEAKER_04: Um and watching the helicopters try and rescue people out of Saigon.
21:26
SPEAKER_04: I think I was you know four years old or something.
21:28
SPEAKER_04: I don't remember watching that on TV.
21:29
SPEAKER_04: And we've been blessed enough to not knock wood, to not have a lot of that activity here in this on our soil.
21:35
SPEAKER_05: But we've sort of many of our citizens have been going over.
21:38
SPEAKER_04: Many of our cities have been going to other places and engaging in in many other places, not you know, all over the world and engaging in this kind of combat.
21:45
SPEAKER_05: Well, and I'm now thinking about their journeys home.
21:48
SPEAKER_04: Uh well, me too.
21:49
SPEAKER_04: I hadn't thought about that to a while.
21:51
SPEAKER_04: Well, I I mean I have been thinking more about that in the last week than I probably had in the last year.
21:58
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
21:58
SPEAKER_04: Um, you know.
22:00
SPEAKER_04: Of course, I mean I always have clients who are veterans and this comes up.
22:03
SPEAKER_04: I mean I work with people through all kinds of things.
22:05
SPEAKER_04: I don't I don't really s specialize in trauma work per se.
22:09
SPEAKER_04: But um but uh you know, since suffering is what leads to individuation, uh you know, there's normally I mean Jung's talked about uh part of the what what happens as we start to really become ourselves during midlife is um you know, we'll be met with some kind of problem that appears unsolvable, that doesn't appear to have a solution.
22:30
SPEAKER_04: And it's like we have to get to a new psychological space in order to find the solution or see the problem in a different way.
22:37
SPEAKER_04: And that is the beginning of it what he said is the individuation process.
22:41
SPEAKER_04: And he and Jung was convinced it really didn't start happening until you know midlife, which for him was mid-30s.
22:48
SPEAKER_04: He thought of midlife as mid-30s.
22:49
SPEAKER_04: We we in in our um age resistant culture like to say midlife is fifty-five.
22:55
SPEAKER_04: I'm here to tell you it's not.
22:58
SPEAKER_04: Maybe forty.
22:59
SPEAKER_04: Uh maybe.
23:00
SPEAKER_04: Two.
23:01
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, maybe.
23:02
SPEAKER_04: You're still in the window.
23:04
SPEAKER_04: I'm in the window.
23:04
SPEAKER_04: You're still in the window.
23:06
SPEAKER_04: But yeah, so I think that there's so much to say about Well, just one of my observations of the film was I thought that it's such a beautiful story of just of his psychological recovery.
23:22
SPEAKER_04: Of course, it's the I you know, looking back on the history, I can see, okay, like this was the end of the Bronze Age.
23:29
SPEAKER_04: The culture was trying to make sense of it.
23:30
SPEAKER_04: They had these songs about why things went so wrong.
23:34
SPEAKER_04: Because that's a big part of what's going on in the Odyssey, is that they realized that the Trojan horse was wrong.
23:40
SPEAKER_05: Do you think that collectively that was a realization or that Odysseus?
23:46
SPEAKER_05: I think he does too, but I don't know.
23:47
SPEAKER_04: I I don't think if he's the protagonist, that had to have been part of the messaging to the people.
23:51
SPEAKER_04: To the culture.
23:52
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
23:53
SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like you shouldn't really push it quite that far.
23:56
SPEAKER_04: You don't want to go into temples and start massacring people because that's they delivered the horse to a temple.
24:02
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
24:02
SPEAKER_04: I mean, i so it it it it takes like, do I want to use the word war crime?
24:11
SPEAKER_04: Like he realizes that what he's done is a bridge too far too much.
24:17
SPEAKER_04: Like war itself is hard enough.
24:19
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but it but that's a bait and switch.
24:21
SPEAKER_05: You know, there's that whole thing about like the the honor.
24:23
SPEAKER_05: Correct.
24:24
SPEAKER_05: I'm thinking about that story from one of was it World War II, World War One, but when they you know the two sides have a truce on Christmas Day and they come together, you know, everybody puts down everything and they come together and they sing holiday songs and they share food.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Right.
24:42
SPEAKER_05: And then I mean it sounds strange, but then the next day they go back to fighting again.
24:46
SPEAKER_05: But it's like any anybody could have Trojan horse that situation.
24:51
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
24:53
SPEAKER_05: And as far as I know, they they didn't.
24:56
SPEAKER_05: So yeah, it's like it it was Yeah.
24:59
SPEAKER_04: I mean, and that's the thing about Odysseus, like you see him in the film, and he has this really interesting combination.
25:05
SPEAKER_04: Um Matt Damon plays him, which I thought was was cool because they make him look really f he like he got really ripped, so he looks really physically strong, but he's not a very tall man.
25:14
SPEAKER_04: And you see him regularly compared to Agamemnon, who is very tall.
25:19
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
25:19
SPEAKER_04: And you see Odysseus walking behind Agamemnon, and he's kind of like a little shrimp.
25:23
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
25:24
SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like here comes Agamemnon, and he's just making it huge.
25:30
SPEAKER_05: I mean, he basically looks like Darth Vader in Greece, ancient Greece.
25:33
SPEAKER_05: Like Darth Vader, you're right.
25:35
SPEAKER_05: No, with the like the like vertebrae on the ponytail.
25:40
SPEAKER_04: You know, right, it's so intense.
25:41
SPEAKER_04: But uh the Odysseus is strong, but he looks like this little dude, you know what I mean?
25:46
SPEAKER_04: And so I think that the casting, I don't know, I think that and that was emphasized.
25:51
SPEAKER_04: Like the director didn't have to emphasize it in that way.
25:53
SPEAKER_04: So what does that say?
25:54
SPEAKER_04: It says, well, he's really super strong.
25:56
SPEAKER_04: Like he can bend his bow in a way that no one else can bend it.
25:59
SPEAKER_04: But if you notice when he's bending the bow, he does it differently than anybody else does.
26:02
SPEAKER_04: He does, he does it backwards.
26:04
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
26:04
SPEAKER_04: Odysseus is a trickster.
26:06
SPEAKER_06: Mm-hmm.
26:07
SPEAKER_06: Mm-hmm.
26:09
SPEAKER_04: He's wily and he's intelligent.
26:12
SPEAKER_04: And um, he carries a lot of trickster energy.
26:16
SPEAKER_05: Maybe to sometimes too much for his own good.
26:18
SPEAKER_04: Well, this is the thing about being a trickster.
26:20
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
26:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
26:21
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
26:21
SPEAKER_05: Or having that energy.
26:22
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and then at the same time, you know, there's that paradox.
26:26
SPEAKER_05: It was that trickster idea.
26:28
SPEAKER_05: Because I think it was his idea to do the trick.
26:32
SPEAKER_05: Um, it's that trickster idea that won the war.
26:34
SPEAKER_04: Right.
26:35
SPEAKER_04: And it was intelligent, but it wasn't wise.
26:38
SPEAKER_04: Right.
26:40
SPEAKER_04: He hadn't learned really from his own wounds.
26:44
SPEAKER_04: He hasn't he hadn't learned from his own history.
26:47
SPEAKER_04: He was only looking forward.
26:49
SPEAKER_04: He wasn't looking back.
26:50
SPEAKER_04: As a warrior, he he could have been able to pause in that moment and look back and say, hey, you know what?
26:57
SPEAKER_04: Uh this might be a bridge too far.
27:00
SPEAKER_04: Let's try something else.
27:01
SPEAKER_04: Now I get it.
27:02
SPEAKER_04: They've been trying to get it into Troy for ten years.
27:06
SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, so uh i i it it was tough.
27:10
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I mean I sort of I want to take the um stance of I don't know if he could have.
27:15
SPEAKER_04: You don't know if he could have made another choice.
27:17
SPEAKER_05: I don't know if he could have made another choice, and I don't know what it is in me that Well it's this is why uh don't eat the apple.
27:25
SPEAKER_04: Right?
27:26
SPEAKER_04: Is that why?
27:27
SPEAKER_04: You don't have another choice.
27:28
SPEAKER_04: Like once you have the knowledge, there's a there's we're compelled as humans to s there's a part of us that's compelled to see it through.
27:36
SPEAKER_05: Well, I guess I'm thinking about the the idea of looking back.
27:40
SPEAKER_05: Like I don't know what he what could he what could he have looked back to that would have given him that wisdom at the time before he knew what he knew at the end of the story.
27:52
SPEAKER_05: You know what I mean?
27:52
SPEAKER_05: Like was there an opportunity or did it have to happen that way?
27:56
SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, this is the thing, it's useful to view the past in a friendly way.
28:00
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
28:01
SPEAKER_04: And things can only happen the way that they are supposed to be.
28:03
SPEAKER_05: So maybe that's part of why I'm like, it's the only way it could have happened.
28:06
SPEAKER_04: Well, right.
28:07
SPEAKER_04: But what I'm saying, I'm just playing it out.
28:10
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
28:10
SPEAKER_04: Which is that, you know, he really should have known better.
28:14
SPEAKER_05: You think that he should have known better?
28:16
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, okay.
28:16
SPEAKER_04: He was a seasoned general at that point who was gonna become the king of Ithaca.
28:21
SPEAKER_04: He should have known better.
28:24
SPEAKER_04: But could he have but he should have known better than a sneak attack like that?
28:28
SPEAKER_04: He should have known better.
28:29
SPEAKER_05: Could he have become the king of Ithaca if they did not win the war?
28:33
SPEAKER_04: But ultimately does he become the king of Ithaca?
28:36
SPEAKER_04: Because he exiles.
28:37
SPEAKER_04: Right.
28:38
SPEAKER_05: And is so never gonna become the king of Ithaca.
28:41
SPEAKER_04: But what I'm saying is that he's trying to become the king.
28:44
SPEAKER_05: I know.
28:44
SPEAKER_05: I don't but I think the only way he could have become the king was if they could win the war.
28:49
SPEAKER_05: And the only way that they could win the war is with the Trojan horse.
28:52
SPEAKER_04: Well, this might be where I think he's short-sighted.
28:54
SPEAKER_04: Okay.
28:55
SPEAKER_04: This is where I think he gets stuck in his own ego.
28:58
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
28:59
SPEAKER_04: And his own need to just move move it forward.
29:03
SPEAKER_04: They could have just retreated.
29:04
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
29:05
SPEAKER_04: Of course there's another option besides what he did.
29:07
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
29:08
SPEAKER_04: They could have just left it.
29:09
SPEAKER_02: Right.
29:11
SPEAKER_04: But they got caught in the zero-sum fallacy.
29:14
SPEAKER_04: We've been here for nine hours nine years and you know, three hundred and sixty-two days.
29:19
SPEAKER_04: We can't leave now.
29:21
SPEAKER_04: Sure you can.
29:23
SPEAKER_04: They could have just left.
29:26
SPEAKER_04: They could have left well enough alone and wrote a treaty.
29:32
SPEAKER_04: They could have gone to the equivalent of Camp David.
29:35
SPEAKER_04: They could have, I mean, there's lots of things that they could have done, I think, besides what they did.
29:40
SPEAKER_04: So I think his decision to do that is what he's grappling with for the rest of the movie.
29:44
SPEAKER_05: Right.
29:44
SPEAKER_05: I I do agree with that.
29:45
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
29:46
SPEAKER_04: You know, he realizes that it's wrong because there's so much more in the movie where they're where they keep talking about um this this this Greek which I didn't know that it was I and who knows if it actually was, but this idea about being hospitable to strangers that you have to give a stranger food because the stranger could be a god in disguise.
30:05
SPEAKER_04: That this is what they say, that stranger could be Athena, that stranger could be Zeus.
30:08
SPEAKER_04: It's sort of like the Buddha exists in everybody.
30:10
SPEAKER_05: I mean, this is part of um Hinduism as well.
30:13
SPEAKER_05: Right.
30:13
SPEAKER_05: The hospitality is very big for the same reason that you don't somebody could be a god in disguise.
30:19
SPEAKER_05: So you gotta bring them in.
30:22
SPEAKER_04: And then he disguises a horse.
30:25
SPEAKER_05: Uh-huh.
30:26
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
30:27
SPEAKER_04: As a god.
30:29
SPEAKER_04: And then he's in disguise.
30:30
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
30:31
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's a it's a very bad trick what he did in that culture.
30:35
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
30:35
SPEAKER_05: Sure.
30:36
SPEAKER_05: He used the um Yes.
30:39
SPEAKER_04: Like we're giving you a gift.
30:41
SPEAKER_04: Here's a gift.
30:42
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
30:44
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, he used the convention.
30:46
SPEAKER_05: That's the word I was looking for.
30:47
SPEAKER_05: The convention of hospitality um to trick them.
30:51
SPEAKER_01: He did.
30:52
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
30:53
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
30:54
SPEAKER_05: Which which sociologically, like the the idea of hosp hospitality makes a lot of sense because it creates peace.
31:03
SPEAKER_05: Yes.
31:05
SPEAKER_05: And then he did the exact opposite.
31:07
SPEAKER_04: It's like, I'm gonna hand you an olive branch, and it's actually a bomb.
31:11
SPEAKER_04: It's very wily coyote, you know what I mean?
31:13
SPEAKER_04: It's it is it's very it's very trickster.
31:16
SPEAKER_04: The thing about tricksters is tricksters are these disruptive archetypal forces and they don't take sides.
31:22
SPEAKER_04: The trickster is there.
31:24
SPEAKER_04: The trickster is there to show the ego it's not in charge.
31:29
SPEAKER_05: Show the ego that the ego is not in charge.
31:31
SPEAKER_05: That is correct.
31:31
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
31:32
SPEAKER_04: The the tri the trickster will always show up in a culture when things are out of balance.
31:37
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, it's like if you look at the trickster archetype, for example.
31:40
SPEAKER_05: We got that going on in our culture.
31:42
SPEAKER_05: We really do.
31:43
SPEAKER_04: And often, you know, like in Native American cultures, the tricksters are sacred clowns.
31:47
SPEAKER_04: The Hayokas will ride in to battle on their horses backwards.
31:52
SPEAKER_04: They'll climb down into the kiva head first instead of foot first.
31:55
SPEAKER_04: Have you ever seen the images of that?
31:57
SPEAKER_04: It's very beautiful, but it's kind of like they turn everything on their head.
32:00
SPEAKER_04: Like if it's super hot out, the trickster in the tribe will show up in a fur coat and walk around talking about that they're freezing.
32:07
SPEAKER_04: They'll chatter their teeth and everybody will laugh.
32:09
SPEAKER_04: It's so cold, you know what I mean?
32:11
SPEAKER_04: It's this big dramatization.
32:13
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
32:13
SPEAKER_04: To to make everybody laugh, to get everybody out of the mindset, right?
32:20
SPEAKER_04: Like shows up just to push the boundaries.
32:24
SPEAKER_04: So we need we need the trickster.
32:26
SPEAKER_04: But the trickster can be very destructive.
32:28
SPEAKER_05: Well, and so here's the other interesting thing, right?
32:30
SPEAKER_05: It's a fictional story.
32:32
SPEAKER_05: Like Odysseus did not exist.
32:35
SPEAKER_03: Really?
32:36
SPEAKER_05: That's my understanding, is that the the the Trojan War is a fictional war.
32:40
SPEAKER_05: Right.
32:41
SPEAKER_05: Right.
32:41
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
32:42
SPEAKER_05: Right.
32:42
SPEAKER_05: And so Odysseus didn't exist.
32:44
SPEAKER_05: And so this qu the story could go any way, but the people that wrote it and perpetuated it ch continuously chose to make Odysseus into this trickster figure.
32:57
SPEAKER_05: Right.
32:58
SPEAKER_05: Um for some reason.
33:00
SPEAKER_05: And I'm wondering if it's the things that you're saying, because that's part of what they needed in the culture at the time.
33:05
SPEAKER_05: They needed that trickster figure.
33:07
SPEAKER_05: Right.
33:08
SPEAKER_05: So he had to make the Trojan horse.
33:11
SPEAKER_04: Oh, you're back to that.
33:12
SPEAKER_05: Well, I mean, I'm I'm just saying, like, when you write a story, like some culture wrote it as this for some reason.
33:24
SPEAKER_05: I guess to teach this this hospitality part of it or to I I mean, I don't know exactly, but I'm just sort of reflecting on all of that part of it.
33:34
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
33:36
unknown: Yeah.
33:36
SPEAKER_05: I mean, it it wasn't until I heard in in an interview that the Trojan War was a fictional war that I was like, wait, it was?
33:44
SPEAKER_05: This isn't based on some dude.
33:48
SPEAKER_05: I mean, maybe there were store maybe there were stories of people that have done certain things, but I do think that it was serving a purpose in the culture.
33:56
SPEAKER_05: And and why this movie now in our culture?
34:01
SPEAKER_04: Well, I think the thing about Odysseus is that like I find him very relatable.
34:05
SPEAKER_04: He he keeps thinking he can outwit reality.
34:08
SPEAKER_04: He he keeps thinking that he can outwit stuff.
34:11
SPEAKER_04: And I mean, I'm a therapist.
34:13
SPEAKER_04: I'm trying to outwit all the time.
34:16
SPEAKER_04: Right.
34:17
SPEAKER_04: I mean, like, I'm listening to where a person is stuck, and I I I'm thinking, how can I get them to do that?
34:24
SPEAKER_04: How do I pull the trap door?
34:26
SPEAKER_04: What I'm trying to do is help a person see that they're not ever actually stuck, that they're not actually broken, that there's actually not, you know, people get so focused in on the problem that they can't see that they are the solution.
34:36
SPEAKER_04: That that that you know, this it's it's like there's a roomy poem that talks about why you it's it's it's like um you're knocking from the inside.
34:44
SPEAKER_04: I can't remember the exact I can't remember the exact um poem, but it's something like you know, you're knocking to get in, but you're inside the house.
34:53
SPEAKER_05: Is it like the the calls coming from inside the house?
34:55
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's like you're knocking, but you're in the house already.
34:58
SPEAKER_04: Right.
34:58
SPEAKER_04: You're already here, my love.
35:00
SPEAKER_04: You know, like that's that's kind of the the thing.
35:02
SPEAKER_04: So I'm I'm regularly in my mind, like I really relate to Odysseus a lot.
35:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, tell me how.
35:08
SPEAKER_04: Well, I think I carry a lot of trickster energy and um you know, and I and I think I'm pretty wily and I'm I'm I'm regularly relying on my intelligence um uh to to try and you know um figure it all out, I guess.
35:25
SPEAKER_04: Sure.
35:26
SPEAKER_04: And outwit the demons and the struggles that I have and the um and part of what happens to Odysseus is that he keeps getting humbled by Poseidon.
35:35
SPEAKER_04: Poseidon just keeps beating the crap out of him.
35:39
SPEAKER_04: Poseidon's like, no, you're getting it wrong.
35:41
SPEAKER_04: Smash wave, smash.
35:43
SPEAKER_04: I mean, he just gets smashed and smashed and smashed all around the sea until finally he just puts himself on a raft and says, Okay, Poseidon, I surrender.
35:54
SPEAKER_04: And it's at that point that he's he's really humble.
35:59
SPEAKER_04: That he gets respite.
36:00
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
36:01
SPEAKER_04: That he and that he's humble.
36:02
SPEAKER_04: And then miraculously somehow he's ends up back in Ithaca.
36:05
SPEAKER_04: Like he's trying the whole time to get home.
36:09
SPEAKER_04: It reminds me of, you know, you're already there.
36:11
SPEAKER_04: There's no place like home.
36:12
SPEAKER_04: All you have to do is remember that you have to go home.
36:14
SPEAKER_04: It's like that part of the story.
36:16
SPEAKER_04: He she clicks her heels three times and magically she gets back home, right?
36:20
SPEAKER_04: All she had to do was trust.
36:22
SPEAKER_07: Right.
36:23
SPEAKER_04: And it's the same with him.
36:25
SPEAKER_04: He he he needed to surrender.
36:28
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
36:29
SPEAKER_04: That he thought.
36:30
SPEAKER_04: Right, and so they keep trying to control the whole thing.
36:32
SPEAKER_04: Right, because he thought he had to be king.
36:35
SPEAKER_04: And ultimately, the solution is his son is supposed to be king, not him.
36:39
SPEAKER_04: Right.
36:39
SPEAKER_04: And and he sails off into the sunset with beautiful Penelope, you know.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:44
SPEAKER_04: And he's wiser and very humble, comes back to the town as a beggar.
36:48
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
36:49
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, those that last that last uh Yeah, what's I don't know?
36:53
SPEAKER_04: So anyway, so those are some of my kind of, you know, things about it that really struck me.
36:57
SPEAKER_04: I mean, what did that was the beggar like really Well I don't know.
37:00
SPEAKER_05: I mean, just yeah, just that whole the Yeah, because you do see him soften and Well, and I I've shared this part with you.
37:07
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I feel like I relate to Odysseus in a different way.
37:12
SPEAKER_05: Um, we're getting ready to sell my childhood home.
37:16
SPEAKER_05: Like somebody, like it's uh there like n not I don't know if there's a single piece of furniture left in that house that was there when I was a kid.
37:26
SPEAKER_05: And it has the house has always been there.
37:30
SPEAKER_05: I mean, I'm very uh I guess press blessed, pressed, blessed and privileged to have my parents still live in the house I grew up in, even in my 40s, right?
37:41
SPEAKER_05: And so um, but it's a strange thing.
37:44
SPEAKER_05: It's this this thing, this this place, this physical place that has always been there.
37:49
SPEAKER_05: And always kind of felt like, yeah, like I could go back home.
37:53
SPEAKER_05: I mean, the house that we're living in now is also my home.
37:57
SPEAKER_05: And like when I come back into town, this is the house I want to go back to, but like talk about quintessential home, you know, mom and dad's house, like um, that was there.
38:08
SPEAKER_05: And yeah, so his whole journey trying to get back home and then realizing that he's not gonna be able to go home um for a couple different reasons.
38:16
SPEAKER_05: One is all this stuff around him um coming to terms with what it is that he had done, and you know, can't could he even still be king and all that sort of a thing, but also the home that he left, you know, when he left that son was a baby.
38:33
SPEAKER_05: Right.
38:33
SPEAKER_05: You know, and when he left, there wasn't a bunch of dudes living in his house.
38:38
SPEAKER_05: Right.
38:39
SPEAKER_05: And all of all of these things, you know, he'd been gone for what, 20 years or something.
38:44
SPEAKER_05: So he was never going to be able to go back home to the home that he left.
38:49
SPEAKER_05: And I think that the the process of and even even building the addition, I mean, the the process of building the edition assigned being it aside being its own Odyssey, which we could do, I feel like we could do a whole episode on.
39:03
SPEAKER_05: Yep.
39:04
SPEAKER_05: Um the this house is changing.
39:07
SPEAKER_05: This house no longer is the home that it was.
39:11
SPEAKER_05: Right.
39:12
SPEAKER_05: And so I don't know, th those are themes that are going on in my own life that I it's like simultaneously the home home isn't there anymore, home doesn't exist anymore, and also home is where I am right now.
39:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this idea of a home.
39:30
SPEAKER_05: Mm-hmm.
39:30
SPEAKER_03: It's so charged emotionally.
39:35
SPEAKER_03: Where is where is your home?
39:36
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
39:38
SPEAKER_05: Totally.
39:40
SPEAKER_04: And so you're having a sense that that you when your childhood home house sells, that a part of your home will then become this home that we're in.
39:54
SPEAKER_05: I actually feel like my childhood home is in some ways already gone.
39:58
SPEAKER_04: It feels like it's already gone.
40:00
SPEAKER_05: So it's kind of like I'm Odysseus out to sea, realizing that the home that I there I'm not gonna be able to go back to that home.
40:08
SPEAKER_05: Like that I I've already missed the chance to go back to that home.
40:11
SPEAKER_05: That home is gone.
40:12
SPEAKER_05: Even though it's still physically there.
40:14
SPEAKER_05: Like Ithaca was still there.
40:16
SPEAKER_05: He could still physically go back to Ithaca.
40:18
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
40:18
SPEAKER_05: But it's not gonna be that home that it was that it was.
40:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:24
SPEAKER_05: And so Yeah, I just sort of have been um reflecting a lot about that.
40:30
SPEAKER_05: I mean, you know, the situation that we're in, I don't think that there's a parallel, I don't see a strong parallel between like some, you know, I don't know what my Trojan horse would be in this situation, right?
40:40
SPEAKER_04: So maybe the metaphor doesn't I think the theme of home is is where is where you're feeling the connection, the resonance is the theme of you know, of home, of of of going back home.
40:53
SPEAKER_04: And how he he can't Odysseus can't go back home in the story until he faces all of these monsters, right?
41:01
SPEAKER_04: Right.
41:02
SPEAKER_04: He has to face the monsters, and these monsters really are, it seems to me, representations of like psychological states, right?
41:10
SPEAKER_05: Mmm.
41:11
SPEAKER_05: Mmm.
41:12
SPEAKER_05: Tell me more.
41:14
SPEAKER_04: Well, I mean, if you think about the cyclops, yeah, what's the well the cyclops has no peripheral vision.
41:20
SPEAKER_05: Okay.
41:21
SPEAKER_04: If you think about only having one eye, it can literally only see what's right in front of it.
41:25
SPEAKER_05: Okay, nice.
41:26
SPEAKER_05: Right, right.
41:26
SPEAKER_05: That's why they're able to sneak out.
41:28
SPEAKER_04: Yep, that's why they're able to sneak out.
41:30
SPEAKER_04: That is accurate.
41:32
SPEAKER_04: And then part of what happens is that you know, he does something really cruel, which is that he blinds him.
41:39
SPEAKER_05: I know.
41:40
SPEAKER_04: And that is the part it it I think personally that that's where Odysseus himself becomes unconscious.
41:46
SPEAKER_04: It's like, let's play out the idea that the monsters are representations of his shadow.
41:51
SPEAKER_06: Mm-hmm.
41:52
SPEAKER_04: Then this is the part of him that can only see what's in front of him, that is bigger and stronger than anybody else, that is brute force that is simple and you know, kind of childlike.
42:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:07
SPEAKER_04: Right?
42:08
SPEAKER_04: Um and is very, very close to nature.
42:13
SPEAKER_04: I mean, the cyclops is living in the forest, is just eating what's in front of it, is very instinctive being.
42:20
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
42:20
SPEAKER_04: Cyclops is not civilized.
42:22
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
42:23
SPEAKER_04: And so it's very, very close to the unconscious.
42:26
SPEAKER_04: And he blinds it.
42:27
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
42:28
SPEAKER_04: I think at that point he's saying, I can't, I don't, I can't see anymore.
42:31
SPEAKER_05: I don't wanna I don't want to look at it.
42:33
SPEAKER_04: I don't want to look at it.
42:34
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I don't want to look at it.
42:36
SPEAKER_04: I don't want to look about it.
42:37
SPEAKER_04: I don't wanna I don't wanna look at it.
42:39
SPEAKER_04: And then that that gets played out.
42:41
SPEAKER_04: That and then that keeps because Poseidon's like, no, homie, you're gonna look.
42:46
SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna start killing people right in front of you who you're close to.
42:50
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
42:50
SPEAKER_04: You're gonna look.
42:51
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
42:51
SPEAKER_04: And Athena is shaking her head, you're gonna look, and he's still not looking.
42:55
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
42:56
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
42:57
SPEAKER_04: He just keeps going.
42:59
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
42:59
SPEAKER_04: Right?
43:00
SPEAKER_04: I mean, the scene with the lotus flowers, you know, that's just about self-forgetting and denial and addiction.
43:11
SPEAKER_04: Right?
43:12
SPEAKER_04: The temptation of the sirens.
43:16
SPEAKER_05: What a seven.
43:19
SPEAKER_05: I I'm referring to the Enneagram.
43:21
SPEAKER_05: If you you're like, why is she shouting out random numbers?
43:26
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
43:27
SPEAKER_05: I mean, yeah, he's like, I just want to hear it.
43:30
SPEAKER_05: They're like, why I just want to hear it.
43:32
SPEAKER_05: He's well, because then nobody's ever heard the sirens I want to be the first.
43:38
SPEAKER_04: And then he goes on like a total psychedelic trip hearing it.
43:41
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
43:42
SPEAKER_04: He's like having an ayahuasca journey on the on the bob on the on the deck of the boat.
43:47
SPEAKER_05: This is one of the big holes, though, for me is he's confused.
43:51
SPEAKER_05: He's he's tied up.
43:54
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
43:54
SPEAKER_05: Why does his second in command not just be like, homie, I'm putting wax in your ears?
43:59
SPEAKER_05: There's Nothing you can do about it.
44:01
SPEAKER_04: Because he told her not to.
44:02
unknown: I know, man.
44:04
SPEAKER_05: Wrong move.
44:08
SPEAKER_05: Although if again, if I were to would I want to hear the sirens.
44:12
SPEAKER_04: But that act just lacks humility.
44:14
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
44:15
SPEAKER_05: You know, I mean the hubris.
44:17
SPEAKER_05: The hubris.
44:18
SPEAKER_04: I mean it it's just really like I can outwit it.
44:21
SPEAKER_04: I can take it.
44:22
SPEAKER_04: I can do anything.
44:23
SPEAKER_05: I mean, we might as well get some wax and feathers and see if you can f touch the sun.
44:27
SPEAKER_04: Totally.
44:28
SPEAKER_04: Right.
44:28
SPEAKER_04: Like I can do anything.
44:30
SPEAKER_04: I'll figure it out.
44:30
SPEAKER_04: Me, me, me.
44:31
SPEAKER_04: And and and just yeah, I think that that's um and then, you know, the the the him being caught between the Silla and Charybdis like really reminds me of this uh like the un of this this place where we have in our minds like unavoidable bad choices to make.
44:49
SPEAKER_04: It's like no matter which way we go, it's gonna be it's the the choice is gonna mean we're gonna lose something.
44:54
SPEAKER_05: It reminds me of the train problem.
44:57
SPEAKER_04: Yes.
44:59
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
45:00
SPEAKER_03: Say more about what you mean.
45:01
SPEAKER_05: I mean my rememory is you know, if you look at season one of The Good Place, you'll see a very great um depiction of the train problem.
45:08
SPEAKER_05: But basically you're on a train or two people or you're on I don't know.
45:11
SPEAKER_05: I forget how it goes.
45:12
SPEAKER_05: There's a train, there's uh there's there's a lever to change the train tracks, and if it stays on the track that it's on, it's gonna hit a person.
45:23
SPEAKER_05: But if you flip the lever, it'll move to another track, but then it will hit two people.
45:29
SPEAKER_05: So do you let it just stay on the track and hit that one person, or do you say or maybe it maybe it's vice versa, maybe it's two people it's gonna hit, and then but if you pull the lever, it'll just hit one person or something.
45:41
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so it's like damned if you do, damned if you don't.
45:44
SPEAKER_04: Sophie's choice.
45:45
SPEAKER_05: You know, e somebody somebody gonna die.
45:47
SPEAKER_05: Are we all gonna die, or just six of you randomly?
45:50
SPEAKER_01: Right.
45:51
SPEAKER_05: And I'm not gonna tell you that that's what's gonna happen.
45:53
SPEAKER_05: That was the part that he he oh, that would that was the Trojan horse for the crew.
45:59
SPEAKER_04: It was.
45:59
SPEAKER_04: He tricked them also.
46:00
SPEAKER_05: He tricked them.
46:02
SPEAKER_05: They were pissed.
46:03
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
46:03
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
46:04
SPEAKER_04: That after that they mutiny.
46:05
SPEAKER_05: They did.
46:06
SPEAKER_04: Uh-huh.
46:07
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
46:08
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
46:09
SPEAKER_04: They're not listening to him after that.
46:11
SPEAKER_05: No.
46:13
SPEAKER_05: No.
46:13
SPEAKER_04: And then he's like, alright, well, you're all gonna die anyway.
46:16
unknown: Right.
46:16
SPEAKER_04: I kept a few of you around for another day or so, but yeah.
46:21
SPEAKER_04: God, what a story.
46:22
SPEAKER_04: I know, I know.
46:24
SPEAKER_04: I know.
46:24
SPEAKER_04: And he actually goes to Hades.
46:27
SPEAKER_07: Uh-huh.
46:28
SPEAKER_04: I mean, he goes he liked the good hero, he goes it directly into the underworld.
46:31
SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's not even symbolic.
46:34
SPEAKER_04: I mean it's literal.
46:35
SPEAKER_05: I mean, yeah, no, totally.
46:37
SPEAKER_05: Right.
46:37
SPEAKER_05: Totally.
46:39
SPEAKER_05: Oh.
46:40
SPEAKER_05: But it was fun.
46:41
SPEAKER_05: And I think it's good medicine.
46:43
SPEAKER_03: Why?
46:44
SPEAKER_05: Um, because I think being an archetype bolster, I mean, I find understanding the hero's journey to be good medicine for me because it helps me look at my life through the lens of the hero's journey.
46:58
SPEAKER_05: Or, you know, I guess in uh who's the woman that wrote The Heroine's Journey.
47:04
SPEAKER_05: Oh God.
47:06
SPEAKER_04: I don't remember.
47:07
SPEAKER_05: I want to say Marion Woodman, and it's not a good thing.
47:09
SPEAKER_05: That's the first thing that came to my mind too, but it's not.
47:11
SPEAKER_05: It's not.
47:12
SPEAKER_05: Um, anyways, yeah.
47:14
SPEAKER_05: So there's a there's a feminized version of the hero's journey, and I forget how that is different.
47:18
SPEAKER_05: But maybe we'll do an episode on that.
47:20
SPEAKER_05: Oh yeah.
47:20
SPEAKER_05: That would be fun.
47:21
SPEAKER_03: That would be great.
47:22
SPEAKER_05: But being able to um, I feel like it gives me a map of my own life of being able to be like, oh, okay, well, is this a Trojan horse, or am I um I don't know, these things that that need to be overcome, or I yeah, I don't know how to put it into words exactly, but yeah, it I think that stories I think that stories can be healing.
47:46
SPEAKER_05: Me too.
47:46
SPEAKER_05: You know, this great hero I mean, this great hero and the tragic fall.
47:49
SPEAKER_05: The tragic fall of the great hero, I think, is good for all of us because we are all that.
47:54
SPEAKER_04: Right.
47:55
SPEAKER_04: I mean, there was a reason that they were singing this the poems to I mean, we we this is the way we heal each other is through story, I think.
48:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
48:02
SPEAKER_04: And I think it's it's one of the really powerful parts about podcasting, and I think it's one of the reasons that I love to listen to podcasts.
48:07
SPEAKER_04: Every podcast has an element of a story.
48:09
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
48:09
SPEAKER_04: I tend to not really like I know some people love podcasts that are say about like fantasy football or something that they're interested in, and they'll listen to a podcast to be able to just get information about things.
48:17
SPEAKER_04: I don't tend well, I'm not that kind of person anyway.
48:20
SPEAKER_04: I'm not really as interested, but I love podcasts that have a little bit of a story element.
48:24
SPEAKER_04: You know, even if it's that the podcast itself is a story, but that that there are there are people on the pod that are telling stories about things that are teaching me things.
48:32
SPEAKER_04: So I've been listening to the thing.
48:34
SPEAKER_04: I mean, we're the bards in the s in the square, in essence.
48:36
SPEAKER_04: I mean, that's part of what I think good podcasting is doing in our culture right now.
48:40
SPEAKER_04: It's like we're telling we're telling stories, we're telling our own stories, we're telling the stories of others, and we're helping ourselves make sense of it all by telling the stories and by listening.
48:50
SPEAKER_04: And I I I I don't think there's much better medicine than story.
48:56
SPEAKER_04: Truthfully.
48:58
SPEAKER_04: You know, when all things kind of come around full circle.
49:02
SPEAKER_04: And the other thing I wanted to say was that I don't think home so much is a physical place.
49:06
SPEAKER_04: I think it's the self.
49:07
SPEAKER_04: I think it's you know, when the when they say the hero returns home, well, it might not be to the physical home.
49:13
SPEAKER_04: Like maybe if your planet was destroyed, you're never going home there again.
49:17
SPEAKER_01: Right.
49:17
SPEAKER_04: But home is is you.
49:19
SPEAKER_07: Right.
49:21
SPEAKER_04: Home is a part of yourself that you haven't met yet.
49:26
SPEAKER_04: Or maybe it's a part of yourself that you think you know.
49:28
SPEAKER_04: So, you know, you go home and you're like, this is where I'm comfortable, but it's where you're it's where your home is.
49:32
SPEAKER_04: But that feeling like I don't know where home is, I mean, to me what that means is that there's a part of yourself that you've forgotten or that either you've forgotten or or maybe you just haven't met yet.
49:43
SPEAKER_04: Like Odysseus hadn't met that part of himself yet.
49:48
SPEAKER_04: That that could leave Ithaca behind, that could step down from the throne, that that could be the beggar.
49:54
SPEAKER_04: He hadn't he hadn't met that part of himself.
49:57
SPEAKER_02: Right.
49:58
SPEAKER_04: You know, it's like he had to go through all of that to meet those parts of himself.
50:01
SPEAKER_04: And I mean, maybe maybe war gives us that as a culture.
50:05
SPEAKER_05: I I I Well, this is where we can learn from conflict.
50:11
SPEAKER_04: I think it's a really beautiful mirror, this story, into the psyche.
50:24
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
50:25
SPEAKER_04: I think personally and collectively.
50:27
SPEAKER_04: I think so.
50:27
SPEAKER_04: It's a must-see.
50:29
SPEAKER_05: I agree.
50:30
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, please go see it.
50:32
SPEAKER_04: And I think we're gonna see it twice.
50:33
SPEAKER_04: We saw it in the small theater, and we're probably gonna go back and see it in the IMAX.
50:37
SPEAKER_04: And I will bring my earplugs because man, it's loud.
50:39
SPEAKER_04: It is loud.
50:40
SPEAKER_04: There is a lot of boom boom boom boom boom boom boom in this movie.
50:46
SPEAKER_05: And maybe we'll talk about it again.
50:48
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
50:48
SPEAKER_04: So how lovely to uh get some popcorn and um sit and uh and whatever flavor soda you want.
50:54
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, what an amazing gift to be able to do such a thing.
50:57
SPEAKER_04: When all over the world there are battles going on.
51:00
SPEAKER_04: Nothing like that.
51:01
SPEAKER_05: I know.
51:01
SPEAKER_04: I know.
51:02
SPEAKER_04: So I just feel a responsibility uh to be able to sit with these things and hopefully provide some kind of solace and help because it's a really really bizarre sense.
51:12
SPEAKER_04: I I mean I don't even really know how to talk about the fracture that I feel in my psyche knowing that I have the life that I have and that there are other people at war right now.
51:21
SPEAKER_04: It's crazy.
51:23
SPEAKER_04: And um it's really, really hard for me to make sense of it.
51:26
SPEAKER_04: I have a hard time wrapping my mind around that.
51:28
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
51:30
SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
51:36
SPEAKER_05: Well, I think these are things are that are important to sit with.
51:42
SPEAKER_05: And um I hope that this episode has brought you all some food for thought in your own hero's journeys.
51:49
SPEAKER_04: Yeah, thank you all for listening.
51:51
SPEAKER_04: Please uh like the episode, subscribe if you already haven't.
51:55
SPEAKER_05: Yes, click the plus button in the top of your podcast app.
51:59
SPEAKER_04: Our loyal friends and fan base.
52:01
SPEAKER_05: Yes, and um always feel free to text us if you have sad comments or send us messages.
52:09
SPEAKER_05: We always love that.
52:10
SPEAKER_05: We love hearing from you and love that this is reaching you, and um we will see you next time on Being Different Together.
52:29
SPEAKER_04: Oh, you know what I realized just now?
52:31
SPEAKER_04: I've never once called him Jumpin' Jack Flash.
52:35
SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's the good name for him.
52:39
SPEAKER_05: Is it jumpin' jack flash is the gas, gas, gas?
52:42
SPEAKER_00: Yep.
52:43
SPEAKER_00: Jumpin' Jack Flash is a gas.
52:47
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was coming back.
52:54
SPEAKER_02: I was born in a cross by hurricane.
53:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh there lizard out in the pole in rain.
53:09
SPEAKER_02: But it's all right.
53:13
SPEAKER_02: Jump and jack flashes again.
53:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: I thought they said gas three times.
53:18
SPEAKER_02: Well it depends on where.
53:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, okay.
53:20
SPEAKER_02: I think.
53:24
SPEAKER_02: You ready to go on this Odyssey?
53:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.