Mindful College Writing

November 8, 2017

Oedipus through the Philosophical Eyes

“…heavy weight of sorrow you will shoulder…” (Oedipus the King), this quote reflects the ode of integrity whispering beneath the roar of murky identity. Human evolution is a scramble through empire and err peddling society into the unknown. Shackles of identity/hierarchy, grouping with no means of unifying are the insensible human lost at sea. The hearth of human is swamped by aches of mistake, regret and guilt. “Racked with anguish…” human is impeded with flawed belief, wings wandering reckless–waiting…waiting for something/someone wise to tell the story of clarity.

Writers of Another Earth (2012), Brit Marling and Mike Cahill, apply the same blackness of human in Another Earth from “he digs [gold pins] down the sockets of his eyes, crying, “You, you’ll see no more the pain I suffered, all the pain I caused,”” where Oedipus fails to forgive, never learns the word and dies to self-hatred. In Another Earth a janitor kills his ears and eyes. In his oblivion he thinks he might lose track of the pain crammed inside. This is the same oblivion Oedipus feels after gorging his eyes blind, “…blind to the sound of life, not just the sight, /Oblivion–what a blessing/for the mind to dwell a world away from pain.”  Rage flings humans into running dramas with no resolution wise enough to sustain peace. When lavender, a color of serenity, inherent royalty, turns rarity and loudness of impulse struts recklessly forward oblivion sleeps sharpness and coldness deaf. Deaf to pain, deaf to life, too deaf to know the heart and forgive. 

“If there was another You, would life then appear like a school, each of Yous learning something different, mastering the many layers of consciousness.” Pain has always been the hiccup of torment. And yet it connects human to compassion because all know well its chatter. As embers of hate, prejudice, and hierarchy burn shackles of separation, I verse You, clear a space opens for something clean to evolve human beyond self-hatred taught by outdated theology. Oedipus is the immature human, ill with confused identity, I without I to infinity. The mature human waits…waits for the quiet story outlining humans into ONE.