Indifference

fibi ducks

Active Member
My own most enduring experience of the greater universe is of its perfect indifference to our fears or desires. Looking back, it seems that this experience may have been alien to ancient Greek culture - as it is shown in myths. There it seems to have been assumed that where there was a famine there must have been a reason for it - some unpunished crime say - and that the famine could be ended by the righting of the wrong.

But does anyone know of a story where, for example, there was a famine and it was just that - and nothing to be done but endure it as best as possible?

Or, if the idea of universal indifference was a later developement, does anyone know when it turned up?

I'd be interested in examples from any mythology.
Thanks
 

fibi ducks

Active Member
epicurus' idea of the gods was that they were utterly unconcerned by human affairs, but were entirely perfect and happy without considering us. this is the most evocative image of personal indifference that i know. i picture the gods being at a dinner party, talking about things we can't understand, elegantly dressed and with impecable manners. we are kept a fair distance aaway by hired hands but can make them out through windows accross the lawn.

i wonder what epicurus' childhood was like? Were his parents as distant as the gods he described?
 

Nadai

Active Member
It was always my understanding that early civilizations used storytelling as a means to explain, not only our existence, but also the reason for other things like illness or famine. It's not like today where we can say "oh Global Warming" or "Solar Eclipse", but then people only had themselves and their beliefs and only what they saw to back up what they believed. I once read somewhere, I can't remember where, that pregnant women standing on the shore of Loch Ness would sometimes see Nessie and go into labor. Obviously this was considered to be a bad omen and from then on people would treat that woman very differently and even her baby for something as simple as a woman seeing something scary and that scary thing forcing labor.
Back then the world was rampant with superstition. Had things been so easy to explain, I don't think religion and superstition would have gained such a strong hold in so many of our cultures. People all over the world had such similar beliefs and ideas about the world, people with absolutely no possible contact with one another, and yet so many different people have so many stories with such similar archetypes delivering such similar messages.
I don't think I could find a single myth that was told simply to be told and for no other reason. When I first read your post one myth came to me and that was the story of Adonis and how deeply Venus loved him. He was beautiful and he was strong and she wanted to protect him and keep him for herself; she warned him against possible danger and asked him to stay away and he didn't and so he was killed. When I first thought of this story I thought mostly about their relationship and nothing else and so I thought, 'oh just a love story', but it's also about taking advice and not putting yourself in danger needlessly and also that no one is invincible (and probably, possibly, that looks can't get you everything).
 

Alejandro

Active Member
I don't know much at all about Epicurus or Epicureanism, but there's a pretty bizarre example from Hindu mythology of what [I think] you're talking about, fibi {please correct me if I turn out to be wrong}. Way way back in the day there was a king named Vṛṣadarbhi [or Vrishadarbhi] who performed a sacrifice which was attended by the Saptaṛṣi [Saptarishi], the renowned Seven Sages, who were a sort of being greater even than the gods in some instances of the mythology. At this event, the king presented his son Anila, who was just a little boy at the time, as a gift to the Saptaṛṣi. Soon afterwards there was a famine in which the boy died, and the famine quickly became so severe that the ṛṣis [or rishis, "sages"] attempted to cook and eat Anila’s corpse, despite King Vṛṣadarbhi’s protests against this. The flesh, however, remained unaltered and the ṛṣis were able to fulfil their desire ( :eek: !)... Azzin like Wow! I don't know that there really is a moral here but whatever it may be [if such there is] it doesn't seem to be connected to any divine reason for the famine. And using a boy gift's corpse-flesh as sustenance during the hardship certainly strikes me [at least] as having nothing to do but endure it as best as possible.

The idea of the kind of indifference to which you're referring seems to me to be extremely difficult (if not impossible) to the ancient Greeks because in their cosmology pretty much everything in existence is literally a person. Famine, hunger or starvation is a spirit named Limos. The stars which bring on drought are the sons of a pair of Titan deities who travel along the Sky-dome, which is the body of an ancient dead god called Ouranos. The clouds which bring rain or hold it back are nymphs born from Ouranos' firstborn son: the most ancient Titan-god Okeanos, this Earth-encircling Titan-god being the waters of which a flood is comprised, or these waters are Pontos, the Sea. The winds that carry sailors across the Sea and allow anything to grow are the brothers of the stars. The Earth upon which creatures tread is the bosom of Gaia, Ouranos' ancient consort, from whom almost all living things, whether divine or human, trace their ancestry. Even in death when sinners are sent to the storm-wracked Hell-pit of Tartaros, that pit too is a person: yet another son of Gaia. So there is a somewhat pantheistic worldview which renders it impossible for the universe to be indifferent, because everything in the universe is a personal entity, which can be pleased or which has genuine feelings that can be hurt.
 
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