Odysseus Complex

I have been reading a book called "The Lost Books of the Odyssey" by Zachary Mason. I've been enjoying it immensely, and taking my time going through it, so I can savor and relish each little tale as its own. I often times reflect on the tale of Odysseus, and what it meant to be him. Throughout the Odyssey, Odysseus is attempting to return home to his loving wife and sweet home of Ithaca. And yet, despite this overall goal, there seems to be very little immediacy in trying to get there. Instead, he pillages and plunders as many villages as he can. He fights monsters and enrages gods. And, he travels from island to island.

I almost wonder if Odysseus really wanted to return home, or rather to the home he had so many years ago. His sight is always on the future. His travel is constant. He leaves behind his crew, dead to some monster/goddess or Neptune. I understand why he is so often portrayed as a man who can never stop wandering. In Dante's Inferno, Odysseus is in hell for having attempted to travel to the ends of the earth. The Ulysses of Tennyson is very similar in this effect. But, it is throughout the Odyssey that his one goal is to return home (or that's what he'd have you believe). I guess the inherent problem in discerning Odysseus' goal is his great capacity for deception. Beyond all doubt, there is one thing Odysseus will do no matter what the price: survive. He has no real loyal friends throughout his wanderings. Any close friends he may have had all perished before the Priam's walls. His crew are simply the subjects he is lord over. While I don't doubt that Odysseus felt some affection for his comrades in arms, I don't think he would have necessarily called them a friend, and meant it. If anything, his closest "friend" throughout his life is a goddess, whose affection for him is great and unnatural. But, from the moment he leaves Troy's shores until the moment he arrives on Ithaca, Athena is unusually absent.

I describe the Odysseus Complex as the need to keep looking at the future, without keeping any real attachment to the past, as a survival mechanism. While he is stranded upon an island, he laments his wife and home, his future, as it seems there is no possible way of achieve it. In such a way, he is trapped in a present that quickly becomes his past. And, when he finally achieves his "future", most tradition holds that he once again leaves Ithaca in search of new adventure. I don't think Odysseus is looking for freedom. I think he is trying to reach the future before the present.

Is this a natural state of mind? Is it a healthy state of mind? I'm not certain. I can see many of these qualities in my own life. Having lost my future once, I seem steadfast to hold onto some ambiguous future. I have nearly completely forsaken my past. I have left behind the place of my former residence, and I foresee myself continuing to travel for some time onward. I have left behind many former friends, in what I'm sure appears to be a most callous manner. This is probably because I neither regret nor lament those decisions. Nor do I have any desire to repair those bridges burned. But, I do remember them, my comrades in arms. The ones who pulled me through a battlefield. The ones who helped me survive. I look at the good they have done me in the past, and I wonder if I am a terrible man for what I've done. The cause of their loss was not ship wreck or terrible monster, but rather lies and forgiveness denied. At the time, I did what I needed to survive, but now that I am past survival, and doing well, am I a terrible person for neither trying nor desiring to make amends? Should I not leave the past behind me? Should I not seek new experiences and allies? Should I not sail for new islands?

I wonder what thoughts filled the head of that man while he stared out across the wine-purple sea.