Psst…you’re comfortable being miserable – the Greeks get it!
Sophocles totally gets that you keep that thing you hate because you’re comfortable, he just thinks you’re lame.
Imagine you are on a deserted island. You have nothing to do but shoot birds or sleep. All day your leg oozes because a random holy snake bit you for walking by a tree. After years of this “staycation” you are given the option of companionship, food, warmth, and snake bite balm. What would you say?
“All aboard the Chattanooga Choo Choo!” while hobbling as fast as you can to the nearest exit?
Maybe not.
Consider that Philoctetes, in the play named for him by Sophocles, turns down those perks. In obvious shock, his would-be deliverer asks how he could be so dense. P-man replies:
“It is not the sting of wrongs past but what I must look for in wrongs to come.”
::SKID TO A STOP::
Philoctetes was used to the torture on his island and knew he was strong enough to face it. The unknown horrors he would face when once again mingling with the men who had abandoned him there? In such a weary and heartbroken state as Philoctetes must have been in at that time, it could look more inviting to stay with the familiar pain.
We are all to some extent stuck with P-man’s dilemma. Whether a familiar job we hate, using Middle Eastern oil, or procrastinating on our dreams, we are all scared to fight the hell we are comfortable with.
Sophocles allegedly once said, “I write men as they ought to be, Euripides wrote them as they are.”
That Philoctetes eventually is reasoned with and embarks on a fulfilling adventure (not so wonderful for the Trojans who end up dead but this story isn’t told from their perspective) is a testament to our deepest desire – actual change.
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