“How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?” ~Verbal Kint (The Usual Suspects) “Why’d you think I put out your fire? Don’t you know I breathe in fire…breathe out fire?” ~Tune-Yards (“Fiya”) Tantalus vs. Tantalus As a mortal son of Zeus, Tantalus was favored by the Olympic Gods above all other humans. He was the king of Elis, which was perhaps the most beautiful and fruitful regions in Greece, and he possessed vast wealth, glory and treasure. But even his treasure paled in comparison to his wonderful son, Pelops. After dining on Mount Olympus one day, Tantalus offered to return the favor by inviting the Olympic gods to dine at his home in Elis. Each graciously accepted his offer: Amongst them were Zeus, his father; Hera, Zeus’s wife; Athena, Apollo, Artemis, Ares, Hermes, and Poseidon. The Ancient Greek custom asked for a host to welcome his or her visitors to their home by presenting them with a thoughtful gift. Knowing he was mortal, and that the gods would be unimpressed by anything he gave them, Tantalus agonized about what his gift should be. So he chose to give them the one thing he held higher than all of his possessions: his son Pelops. Tantalus sacrificed him, then cooked him in a stew which he served to the gods without telling them. The gods were all outraged. Not only did they despise human sacrifice, they also despised being tricked. Tantalus was punished by being placed in the field of torment in the underworld. There he was imprisoned in a deep pool of water beneath a tree full of a copious variety of ripe fruit. There, Tantalus suffered a constant, burning thirst and the hollow pangs of starvation. But anytime Tantalus reached for a piece of fruit, its branch would sway out of reach; likewise, anytime he bent down for a drink, the pool of fresh, cool water receded in a swift tide… My perspective on Greek myth is that each of us is a composite of every single mythological character. Similar, I suppose, to Disney World’s “Hall of Presidents,” where all of the presidents are on stage at once, each taking a turn at one time or another to give a speech about American democracy. Taking this assertion and running with it, we can see how myth gives us a chance for self-improvement. Because, while we listen to these entertaining stories, we are also learning about ourselves. If it is the case where a figure we admire isn’t large enough in our persona, or if a negative figure is too prominent, we can find a way to grow or shrink their proportion by giving voice to their stories and reacting to their consequences as though the we were the ones involved. Taking this into consideration, I suspect most of us modern readers will have a grand time identifying with Tantalus – as unfortunate as this may be. The moral of his story is quite clear: He could have had what he wanted, but he wasn’t able to get over a basic fear of failure or an initial status of comfort and pride. This isn’t to say he wasn’t able to get over himself – after all, Narcissus has that storyline pretty well covered. Instead, Tantalus’ problem is a social problem: he is trying to relate with other people, but for some reason he fails to make the proper attempt. The aim of this essay will be to understand Tantalus’ situation by examining our related modern-day social outlooks. If we give him the proper pity for what he brought upon himself, we can prevent our own pitiful demise in a similar vein. Or, at least, lessen the chances. If Tantalus was the king of Elis, he was also the king of first-world problems. Tantalus is the sort of person who might mutter “FML” when the dish of Pad Thai he ordered comes to his table with bean sprouts on top after he specifically requested “no bean sprouts.” He isn’t allergic, let us say, but perhaps he doesn’t like the texture, and finds they add absolutely nothing by way of flavor to the dish. And to say Tantalus was favored above all mortals is no understatement. His kingdom was Elis, which means the Elysian Fields – the metaphorical heaven on earth mentioned in The Odyssey – were a prominent feature of his kingdom. This isn’t to say wealth is a bad thing. Instead, I’d like to suggest that if we modern readers could compare our lives to those of nearly anyone who has ever lived before our modern age, we would see we each live an extremely fortunate life. The vast majority of us, at least. This is to say: even Croesus got headaches, but he never would have dreamt of Advil; and your ’09 Impala with a heater that “goes in and out” isn’t so bad when you realize King Richard III would have traded his entire kingdom for a horse. It is ironic to consider tremendous wealth to be a burden, but that seems to be a non- accidental element of Tantalus’s story. In fact, his name literally means “burdened.” But if Tantalus was the wealthiest and most highly-favored person in Greece, can’t we assume he was happy? This seems like a paradox because it is one: Barry Schwartz defined it as “The Paradox of Choice.” The basic premise is that we assume having more options is preferable to having fewer options. But what researchers have discovered is that, beyond a small amount of option, we actually get less and less happy when we are given more and more to choose from. This is why it’s a paradox: we would expect the opposite to be true! It makes sense from the perspective that what we want from our choices isn’t sufficiency, but satisfaction. Because sufficiency is one thing: sufficiency is the temporary solution to a problem. Satisfaction is something else entirely: satisfaction is the permanent resolution of a problem. This is the true burden of wealth, and it is a big part of a social problem I call “comfort sickness:” when a person has no need to spend time worrying about survival, they spend all their time instead on maximizing plans and possessions pertaining to lifestyle. To see this in action, suppose Tantalus is expecting his eight visitors from Mount Olympus soon, and he also runs a jam factory. “Elysian Jams and Preserves,” his company is called. (The example of jam is from Schwartz’s book, by the way). Suppose at first he only made one flavor of jam: grape. If it was his only option as a gift to offer, he wouldn’t hesitate to give grape jam to his visitors. Perhaps Zeus, Hera and the others won’t like it, but if they don’t like his grape jam then they don’t like him. That’s sort of how that would feel, I suppose. But now, let us suppose Tantalus has a number of different flavors in his product line. If he has two or three varieties, it might feel like a choice, but if he has six or seven it will start to feel like a decision. The more jam, preserve and jelly options Tantalus has to offer, the more and more likely it is that some other option would have been a better one to give. What is happening here is the outcome of The Paradox of Choice. With his vast burden of wealth, Tantalus felt like nothing he could offer was good enough since there was nothing he could offer which was substantially better than his other options. So with a vast array of jam textures and flavors to offer, instead of picking one arbitrarily, Tantalus grew indecisive, panicked, and sacrificed his son and served him in a stew. By the way, The Paradox of Choice is prefigured in The Odyssey, as Odysseus sees Tantalus in the underworld during the book’s Nekuia scene. Amazingly, Homer even stops to describe the tree which Tantalus is trapped under. “…And over his head leafy trees dangled their fruit from aloft, pomegranates and pears, and apples glowing red, succulent figs and olives swelling sleek and dark.” (The Odyssey: Book 11, ln 675-678) I can imagine Tantalus starving and reaching for a pear, then suddenly wondering if he’d rather have a pomegranate instead. What if his hand was halfway between the two, and both would be in reach if he simply decided? By the way: this is the sort of subtlety which can be found in Greek Myth if we dare to look for it. But regardless of the metaphors we employ to understand Tantalus’s situation, there is clearly a hidden burden to having almost everything a person could want to have. If possession is a problem for Tantalus, another major problem is a need for a golden opportunity. The more a person worries about how well the next attempt will go, the more fear and expectation will get built into it. My epigram is from The Usual Suspects which I believe captures this feeling perfectly, given its context in the movie. In the scene, a character is telling a story about an opportunity he had to…resolve the story, let us say. And the person to whom he is telling the story interrupts to ask why he didn’t do it. This is when he delivers the line. “Because: How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?” Because: How do you use your one and only chance if you won’t get another one? For this, I want to find a solution for the problem by tackling Tantalus’ enormous sense of pride.