Odyssey of Life

I just watched The Odyssey movie by Christopher Nolan. Yes, I know I am a bit late here, even for a China release. I loved the cinematography, it is absolutely gorgeous. Apparently it was filmed in a few countries, such as Morocco, Italy, Greece, Scotland, Iceland and Malta. I have not read Homer’s book of the same, but the storytelling in the movie is really good. Looking back at the director’s past work, I was surprised to learned that Memento was also one of his works. Loved that movie, but I think my favourite from him is still Inception, the ending is so good.

A bit about The Odyssey

As with any good movie, you end up digging into the reviews, stories, and such. And I looked into understanding the original works a bit more. Apparently, it is one of the oldest surviving works of literature, created around 8th to 7th century BCE and it is actually a very long poem: 12,000 lines and split into 24 books, During that time, because most people were illiterate, it is either sung or recited out with music, instead of it being read as a book, as we assume it would be today. This reminds of how Book of Odes 诗经 and Song Poetry 宋词 were meant to be sung or chanted with music as well. Book of Odes was also created around similar timeframe as The Odyssey. Different places, but eventually humans come down with similar ways to share stories, and knowledge.

Hero’s Journey

Anyways, the movie made me think about the hero’s journey, which is quite a typical arc for these type of stories, but the thing that kept me thinking a bit more is how it relates to our own lives. We are born into this world, which is not of our own choice. And a lot of the major decisions during adolescence is shaped by our parents, relatives, community, and the environment. And like a switch of a button when we graduate from school, we are thrown into the adult world of job, money, relationships, sex, family, children, responsibility, and so much more.

Similar to Odyssey, we need to also survive and thrive in this complex changing modern world, especially with trends in AI and robotics that are changing so fast. As we land into different places (and sometimes totally different worlds) we need to adapt. Also if we do “get lost in the sea”, how do we get back home? Or at least get back into the right direction of life? When we are young, we have ambitious ideals of what we want to do when we grow up, and then after 20 or 30 years “in the wild”, do we still have that wide-eyed enthusiasm? And do we continue to hold those ideals that we had when we were younger? Thinking about my own journey, I think I survived. Mostly due to luck, and probably just naivety. I feel like I still have a lot of curiosity for the world, and thanks to my daughter, I get to relive my childhood again, with her and my partner.

How do we even start to learn to navigate this world? Odyssey’s son, who basically grew up without his father, he needs to figure out what to do, basically “learning on the job”. Even till this day, it seems a lot of these big topics in life, such as health, money, relationships, and happiness are not really taught anywhere directly. Most of these are observed, felt, and absorbed from every day life, and especially in the family. And I hope I am doing an okay job as a parent, and continue to do so.

Xenia

In the movie, the line “Zeus’ Law” is mentioned few times. And at first, it was not clear what it meant for me. Basically it is hospitality towards everyone, including strangers. Xenia is the word for this Greek concept for hospitality. What becomes very obvious in the later parts of the movie, is that this is a two way street, as much as the hosts respects the guests, the guests must also respect the hosts. And this reminds me of Confucian virtue of Ren 仁 that you can translate as benevolence or humaneness, and also the Golden Rule which from the Confucian point of view that talks about reciprocity. And as I write this, again this reminds me of the overall story in the movie, for Odyssey he is going through this very difficult journey, because of what he did in the past. Put another way, his journey is his karma playing out.

In closing, if you have not watched this movie, go and spend the 3 hours to enjoy the beautiful piece of cinematic glory! Totally worth every single minute.