With a cheap excuse they take their belongings and all go to the Trojan War. Among those who leave their worldly life and get on the handsome ship is Achilles, who wants kleos, fame, and glory like nothing else. Only kleos will give him immortality, so he throws himself headlong into war until an arrow hits him in his famous heel and palm before entering the aforementioned fortified city. Although he does not achieve victory nor is the victory thanks to him (we will give that credit to the damn wooden horse) the story of Achilles and his heel is so good that the guy ends up getting the kleo he was looking for. He achieves it to such an extent that even today we are talking here about him and his exploits. One of the biggest stars in Hollywood plays, of course, one of the biggest stars in universal narrative. Of course. Achilles is the host! What a one! Go champion!
Well, maybe not. Some time after the Trojan War, Odysseus is returning home (getting quite distracted, to be honest) and ends up going down to the underworld on one of his own little adventures. Being down there he meets the shadows of the fallen heroes and among them, in fact, is the handsome Achilles (you can imagine him with the face of Brad Pitt). The fact is that Odysseus becomes a fan and begins to praise Achilles and his eternal glory when the one with the screwed heel stops him. very facthalf pissed off, and tells him (according to José Manuel Pabón’s translation): “Do not try to console me about death, illustrious Odysseus. I would rather be another’s husbandman, a man without an inheritance, than to live here as a king among the consumed dead.” Aha! So much kleos and so much mandanga and now Achilles is fucking crazy. Achilles, the great hero, had to die to understand that a humble and worldly life is better than the kingdom of the dead. Achilles the hero has had to go down to Hades and stay trapped there forever to learn that glory, fame and kleos are not worth a sailor’s dime. I hope it doesn’t cost me that much.
Being faint-hearted, bald and devoid of any Achilles quality, I often feel a little like him. I love my job just like Achilles liked to hit me, and in search of my particular kleos I embark on projects from which I don’t know if I’ll come out alive. It happens to me and it happens to many. And then, I’m there in Troy and I think about Achilles silencing Odysseus. “Stop being stupid,” he tells him (my translation), “I wish I had seen it sooner and stayed home with my children, my family and my friends; I wish I had made them soup in the winter and gazpacho in the summer, I wish I had worked less and loved more; I wish I hadn’t been a complete idiot.”
Because that’s what I am. I am and many of us are. An army of idiots.
