Author’s Note: Mistakes. We all make them. Everyone does whether they be big like walking away from friends and family or forgetting your homework. And well, because of your mistake, the other person may feel abandoned. Especially if it’s a big one.
We all make mistakes and often regret it. Errors are made all the time. Some we may wish to take back, but can’t, so we grow from them. No matter what time in history an accident occurs, there’s always the same message: abandonment. This principle is found written between the lines in the collections of Greek myths of Daedalus and Hercules, rewritten by Thomas Bulfinch.
In the myth, Hercules defeats the Minotaur of King Minos with the help of Ariadne, he “repays” Ariadne by sailing back to Athens and abandons her on the ship. Then Daedalus loses his son Incarus and tricks his nephew into falling off the tower, for he thought that his nephew Perdix would be a greater architect than Daedalus. His jealously and arrogance got the best of him. If you think every person in history or in the world is perfect, you are mistaken.
Families aren’t perfect, they’re often very messy. Think about Hera hurling Hephaestus off Olympus or Hades abducting Persephone from her mother Demeter. The Greek gods and demigods are actually very much alike to the families of the TV show Intervention. Its core is of drug use is abandonment or depression, that’s the reason why the addicts use drugs to make them block out the pandemonium of life.
As Ariadne helped Hercules and he left her on his ship. He then failed to remember to signal his father that he was victorious defeating the Minotuar. Most likely, he is repentant for leaving her like that and without indicating his victory, for his father committed suicide believing Hercules was dead. He made a mistake; he grew from that as the new king of Athens. And so has his Olympian family.
Whether family quarrels are shown on national television or written in early times past, there will always be disagreements. Yet the message remains the same of abandonment, betrayal and loss. Ariadne was deceived by Hercules, as was Perdix by Daedalus. Between the lines in the collections of Greek myths of Daedalus and Hercules, you can find this principle.
