In the Shadow of the gods
The pantheon of gods in Greek mythology teaches us something about ideals. Each god represents something valued by the people in its most perfect form. Mars – the ideal warrior, Aphrodite – the ideal lover, Hestia – the ideal homemaker, and so forth. The worship of the gods involved an assumed quid pro quo – the worshipper gives adoration, the god/goddess bestows some of their particular ideal upon them.
We still worship ideals. An ideal is the idea of something in its most perfect potential. As good as it could be. Ideals both inspire and chafe. They help us imagine what things could be and draw us further up. But they also remind us of all things are not and leave us dissatisfied. We see someone living a more ideal life than us and we chafe. But how can you move forward if there’s no backwards to journey from? Doesn’t that necessitate a perpetual ‘better’ than where you are?
Because we are limited beings – in time, energy, and resources – we can never achieve the fullness of our ideals. We can but brush them, like a kid on a trampoline, but gravity inevitably pulls us back down.
We love pictures, because in a picture the ideal is fixed – impervious to entropy. The perfectly organized and clean house is safe from muddy feet and the clutter of living. The handsome, doting lover won’t be inconsiderate, nor his blushing beloved criticize. The sweet, cooing face of the infant will never scrunch into a wail that disrupts sleep and sanity.
Our ideals peek out at us from similarly fixed books and movies. We wonder why our romances never turn out like they do in fairytales. Well – because fairytales are ideals. The hero and heroines are perfect in beauty, energy, and goodness, and even their foibles are understandable and forgivable. We ourselves are just not ideals. We live our lives in the shadow of the gods.
Even our vices have ideals. The porn star represents the ideal of male fantasy – something mortal women will only disappoint as surely as men disappoint the Prince Charming ideal.
And yet we need ideals.
Our ability to imagine “better” is central to our humanity and human progress. Perhaps if we saw them as they are we could be inspired by them without being enslaved by them. We could see our ideals as a call forward, not just a criticism of where we are. We could turn from the worship of them to the worship of the Ultimate of which even our highest ideals only hint.
For the divine pokes through the fabric of our reality and whispers that there’s something better.
