in the story of damocles, the protagonist shares with king dionysus how fortunate that dionysus is to be a king of power and riches. when offered the opportunity to switch places with dionysus, damocles jumps at the chance. as the day arrives and damocles is placed upon the throne, he realizes that dionysus has had a sword placed above the throne held aloft only by a single hair from a horse’s tail. after a time under the precarious position of the sword, damocles pleaded with dionysus to return again to his former state in life. the intention of this illustration was to send a message to damocles and to us that positions of power are precarious ones with potential dangers ever present.
the purpose of my sharing this story is to provide an analogy to how i feel about my own overall sense of hopefulness and well-being. they too feel as if they are constantly in a place of ever present peril. one disappointment or hurtful experience too many and it feels that the horse’s hair will snap and whatever remnants of a positive world outlook that i have in me will be irrevocably sundered from my soul just as surely as the plummeting sword would have cleaved damocles’s skull in two.
i received news today about the outcome of the trip that i went on last week. it was not what i had hoped it would be. i look up and i see that the single hair has started to fray.
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