Filed under: Random Thoughts | Tags: antigone, apollo, belief, believe, bishop, castle, chess, choice, choices, creon, decide, decisions, delphi, destiny, diagonal, disgusting, drama, fate, game, greece, greek, human, incest, ismene, jocasta, king, late, mom, mother, oedipus, oedipus rex, oedipus the king, oracle, play, queen, random, rex, rook, rumor, sophocles, sphinx, thebes, thoughts, tired, tiresias, tragedy
I honestly believe that ignorance is bliss. Take a look at Oedipus in Sophocles’ Greek tragedy, Oedipus Rex. If he had just ignored the oracles and seers that tended to pop up all over the damn place he could have continued living happily. He could have cheeerily gone and gotten some hanky panky on with his wife, Jocasta, without feeling extremely disgusting because he’d just done the dirty with his momma. But no, he listened to rumor, he listened to the Oracle at Delphi, and he simply couldn’t even be bothered to try and quench the burning curiosity he felt when it came to the circumstances surrounding his birth. If he’d lived in ignorance, he wouldn’t have lived such a cursed life.
Because I do not believe that Fate lays out our destinies before us. Yes, there might be obstacles set up along the way by some higher power. Okay, cool. But we choose– we decide– what we do with those obstacles. You can’t tell me that the starving is the “fate” of the millions of emaciated children in third world countries. You cannot convince me that my fate is to end up where some fantastical god moves me.
I am not a pawn. I am not a queen, either. But on the chessboard of life, I consider myself a rook or a bishop (preferably a bishop, I like diagonals more than I like straight lines)– I have restrictions, like any human being. But I can do as much with the game as I want to, even if that means being taken out of the playing because of my own stupidity.
On the other end of the metaphorical spectrum, however, I could also end up checkmating the other guy, as a bishop.
Hmm. It must be late, for me to be making comparisons to chess about life. Time for me to get diagonally to bed.
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