Letters from Odysseus - 1

Waiting to feel ready

preamble / Nolan’s Odyssey was amazing

If you haven’t seen this movie yet, you should. It might be the greatest film Christopher Nolan has ever made. It’s a 10/10.

The only problem I have with it is that it isn’t really The Odyssey. It’s definitely his interpretation of the Odyssey. There are not just missing parts to the story, Nolan’s Odysseus is quite different from Homer’s. I love movies (most people with a film degree - like me - say film). I love them because I love stories. Christopher Nolan’s take on Odysseus is in line with the kind of protagonists he often portrays. Odysseus is portrayed as ashamed of himself and conflicted about what he had done to the Trojans.

In my opinion, there’s a slight problem with this. In the story, that’s not really Odysseus. He also has a lot more of a sense of humor and is much smarter than the movie makes him seem. Nolan’s Odysseus is more like Virgil’s Aneas in The Aeneid. I’d love to see that film too.

So, for this and many reasons not listed. It’s a 5/10 adaptation. It gets the rough outlines right, but doesn’t strike all the notes for me. But everyone should see this movie. What makes these stories so timeless is that they have been reinterpreted and given perspective for thousands of years. See O Brother Where Art Thou for another interpretation. This is what I love about movies - and stories of all kinds - is that we all can watch the same movie and read the same book and have completely different takeaways.

I’m the furthest thing from a purist. I hope that Nolan’s film inspires people to read Homer, Virgil and everyone else. And that they also are drawn to the culture and philosophy that built these myths.

If you want to read the Odyssey, I like these two translations /

Daniel Mendelsohn’s 2025 Translation

This translation strikes a great balance between being poetic and readable. I haven’t read much of this one, but I like what I have read.

E.V Rieu’s Translation

I read this one in high school. Less like a poem and more like a story. It has its own charm.

If you don’t want to read the Odyssey at all, but want to be familiar with it. YOU ARE IN LUCK. That’s what we’re going to do over the next few weeks. This (and the Iliad) are some of my favorite things I’ve ever read. So now it’s time for our version of the Odyssey.

Story

Odysseus has been gone twenty years — ten fighting at Troy, ten lost somewhere at sea trying to get home. His son, Telemachus, has grown up without him. He is a young man now, technically the master of his father’s house. But everyone around him treats him like a boy.

His house has been overrun. More than a hundred men who want to marry his mother and become the next king of Ithaca have moved in. They are there day and night courting his mother Penelope, eating through the family’s food and wine. 100% certain that Odysseus is dead and the estate is theirs for the taking. It’s just a matter of time.

Telemachus hates it. He knows it’s wrong. He says this quietly, to himself. And he does nothing. He has no proof his father is dead, no confirmation he’s alive, no clear next move, so he waits. This feels like what he’s supposed to do. After all, isn’t patience a virtue?

Then a stranger arrives at the door, asking for hospitality. Telemachus welcomes him in and the two talk. The stranger is Athena - the goddess of wisdom, strategy and warfare - in disguise, and she challenges him. She tells him plainly that sitting here doing nothing is not what a man in his position should be doing. She tells him he isn’t a child anymore, that people can see plainly whose son he is, and that it’s time to act like he is the son of a great man. She tells him to stop waiting for news of his father to arrive on its own — to go and find it himself. Go to Sparta, ask the men who fought alongside Odysseus what they know about him.

After this conversation, something changes in Telemachus. The next morning, for the first time in his life, he calls a public assembly - the first since his father left - and stands up in front of the entire island to confront the suitors openly. He tells them that they are shameful. They are destroying his home and calls on Zeus to hold them accountable. However, it doesn’t go how he planned. The suitors blame Penelope and the assembly breaks up with nothing resolves.

The situation doesn’t change. But Telemachus does. He’s never spoken in public before, never confronted the suitors in all these years. He loses the fight. But he learns that being mature isn’t always about winning. It’s about being willing to take a stand even if you lose. Then he does something even bolder. Against his mother’s wishes, with no guarantee of what he’ll find, he outfits a ship and sails out to look for the truth himself.

His father was still missing. The suitors were still in his house. Circumstances had not changed. But Telemachus had. He stopped waiting for the situation to resolve itself and started acting like the man he was already supposed to be.

Truth

We assume maturity, wisdom, greatness or success are things that happen to us — that one day we’ll simply experience these things if we wait long enough.

We wait for these things the way that Telemachus waited for news of Odysseus. Passively telling ourselves that waiting is probably the right thing to do. After all, we don’t have the skills, resources, or relationships. We could fail, badly. In fact, it seems like if we try to do anything it will probably fail. We’ve hit a wall. It’s too uncomfortable and challenging to climb. We should just wait for the right opportunity, the right situation, or the storm to pass.

Days, weeks, and years go by. Nothing changes. Maybe God will come take care of it for us?

Telemachus learned an open secret. It’s not really a secret, but it feels hidden. It feels hidden because it’s actually really hard to do.

Just do it.

He acts first. He gets the failure out of the way. But somehow the failure gives him a sense of confidence. He gets on the ship and sails away. After all, nothing changes if nothing changes. Courage is not the absence of fear. Nor is it the presence of certainty. It is the ability to do what needs to be done when you’re afraid and uncertain.

In 1 Timothy, Paul tells Timothy not to let anyone look down on him for his youth, but to set an example now . (1 Timothy 4:12).

We’re not supposed to wait until we feel ready. We’re supposed to take the step, and let the qualification catch up to the action. Qualification is not proof we are ready. It’s proof that we already did it.

Practice

Stop waiting for a feeling that will never come.

My dad has always said “It’s better to act your way into a feeling than to feel your way into an action.” Waiting to feel like you are ready, capable or even desire to do it will only come once you actually move.

The feeling will not come until you act. So move first.

What’s the one thing you know you need to do that you have been waiting for?