Can You Be Still?

<p>There is probably no piece of literature that the Stoics were more familiar with than the <a href='https://geni.us/PoaBkAT'><em>Odyssey</em></a>. <a href='https://dailystoic.com/seneca/'>Seneca</a> quotes it. <a href='https://dailystoic.com/marcus-aurelius/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=can-you-be-still'>Marcus Aurelius</a> quotes it. Pretty much everyone in the ancient world was so familiar with Homer’s verses that they could be quoted without attribution and people would know what the speaker was referencing</p><p>It makes sense. It’s a beautiful, inspiring poem with all sorts of lessons and images. But here’s one that the Stoics never mentioned, that is easy to miss unless you read all the way to the end. In fact, in some translations it’s cut off or ignored. What does Odysseus do after nearly ten years of war and then ten more years of struggle to make it home? What does he do shortly after arriving home after having been gone so long that his wife’s hair was grey and his old dog was barely alive? After he slaughtered the invaders in his home and secured his kingdom that he was blocked from for so long? </p><p>It’s almost unbelievable: Almost immediately after coming home, he gets ready to leave again! <a href='https://geni.us/PoaBkAT'>As Emily Wilson beautifully translates</a> Odysseus giving the insane news to his long suffering wife:</p><p><em>But now we have returned to our own bed,</em></p><p><em>As we both longed to do. You must look after</em></p><p><em>My property inside the house. Meanwhile, </em></p><p><em>I have to go on raids, to steal replacements</em></p><p><em>For all the sheep those swaggering suitors killed,</em></p><p><em>And get the other Greeks to give me more,</em></p><p><em>until I fill my folds.</em></p><p>Isn’t that the human condition in a nutshell? Isn’t that restlessness exactly what got Odysseus in trouble in the first place? The insatiability and greed that nearly took him and his men to the brink a hundred times? As Blaise Pascal put it, “all