sometimes you have to tie yourself to the life you chose

before we get started: spoilers for the odyssey, obviously.

okay, my wonderful reader, we are back again this week with, surprise surprise, another piece on christopher nolan’s the odyssey. except this time i have actually seen the film so today i will be unpacking some stories from the film rather than last week’s piece on the effort behind making it. if you haven’t read last week’s piece, in a very biased way, i would suggest you do check it out.

read here

today i specifically want to focus on one scene that i, quite frankly, cannot stop thinking about. odysseus is standing on a ship in the middle of the ocean, tied upright to its mast (i had to look up that word). his crew have filled their ears with wax. they cannot hear what is calling to him, and the film never lets us fully hear it either. we only see what the song does to his body.

he screams. he strains against the ropes. he begs the men to release him. (matt damon, you deserve an oscar for this one. also sidenote: i heard somewhere that he agreed to stand on hot metal lego pieces when he acted that scene out to help bring it to life. what an iconic man)

but, they keep rowing.

and to me, the strange part is not that odysseus has been tied up. it is that he asked them to do it.

before they reached the sirens, while he could still think clearly, he told his crew that he would eventually beg them to untie him. he told them not to listen. if he pleaded, they were to pull the ropes tighter.

odysseus knew something about himself that most of us spend our lives trying not to admit: there are things we can want so badly that wanting them changes what feels reasonable.

so he made a decision before desire entered the room.

and then, a few days after watching the film, i read this confession that someone sent to me on instagram:

“kiki, i don’t have a big dream to follow anymore. i’m lost. i just have ordinary goals now.”

i kept returning to that word.

just.

as though an ordinary life were the embarrassing backup plan. as though a dream only counts when it is large enough to require a dramatic montage. as though wanting a home, people you love, meaningful work, enough money and a quiet mind means you somehow failed to imagine hard enough.

but i wonder if some of our biggest dreams are not destinations at all.

i wonder if they are siren songs.

in homer’s poem, circe warns odysseus that the sirens have lured countless sailors to their deaths. anyone who hears their song abandons his journey. he never returns to the wife and children waiting for him at home.

the crew can protect themselves by filling their ears with wax. odysseus, being odysseus, still wants to listen.

so circe gives him a strange set of instructions: let the men bind him hand and foot to the mast. when he begs to be released, they must add more ropes.

and that is exactly what happens.

the sirens do not sing, “come here and ruin your life.” haha, that would be a terrible marketing strategy.

they call odysseus by name. they remind him of his glory. they promise that if he comes closer, he will leave wiser. they know what happened at troy, they tell him. they know everything that happens on earth.

their song is flattering. it makes him feel important. it promises him access to something other people will never understand.

the original passage is less about simple pleasure than i remembered. the sirens appeal to the part of odysseus that wants to be exceptional. they offer him one more experience, one more revelation, one more reason to delay going home.

which, honestly, feels very modern.

our sirens rarely arrive as monsters. they arrive as possibilities.