Odysseus

After I watched the Odysseus movie, I felt a huge sadness well up inside me

Not because the movie was good or bad, the movie is great, but I felt sad because at least Odysseus felt regret for what he did in Troy, the people he killed, the houses he burned, and the beheading of Athena (that's just a dramatization in the movie, but in the real story Odysseus didn't behead her or anything)

The point is, he felt regret! And he came to his senses and realized there's no way Zeus would accept all this violence and destruction.

In contrast, all the Islamic conquests, and the Crusades and other wars fought in the name of religion, did any of them ever stop to think, does the God who sent you to fight really accept this killing and destruction?

And while I was sitting in the cinema watching the movie, I remembered how we used to study the Islamic conquests in school as if they were great, monumental achievements. Did it never cross the minds of Khalid ibn al-Walid or Amr ibn al-As that taking someone else's land and forcing your language and religion on them isn't right?

And so I'm not just picking on one side, the same thing applies to Christopher Columbus, and Netanyahu, and Genghis Khan, and others, people who to this day take other people's land and kill and destroy for whatever reason.

Maybe this is just part of the nature of life, maybe, just like there are animals out there that kill each other, maybe we too need some of us to kill each other? Maybe we're not any better than animals at all?

Maybe no one has ever really felt what Odysseus felt, and that's why he's just a myth…