Navigating The Labyrinth Of Connection
When I was growing up, I quickly developed a growing infatuation for Greek mythology. I was entranced by the idea that everything has an explanation. Every single thing that exists has a beginning, it has a use, it has an end. The story of the Labyrinth has always been one of my favorites.
The important overlying structure of mythology is human connection, and most times, the paradigmatic deal of finding it. Many people only see the glitz and glitter of it; the monsters, the gods, the men who can turn things to gold with a brush of their fingers. I am not special for being more interested in the grittier, more grotesque details that paint a bittersweet scene about human nature in mythology. I am just a girl.
Human connection, for us, is the overarching structure of life. It’s the determinant to how we lead them. For creatures so embedded within our own selves, it’s incredible how every string on the drawing board leads back to craving the company of others.
The Labyrinth was built by Daedalus, a father, an architect, an inventor. A genius, by all definitions of the word. Daedalus often found himself entangled in sticky situations due to his inherent desire to please others that he felt indebted to. The King of Crete was no exception. Daedalus, in the hopes of falling in good graces with him and his wife to feel welcomed, had made a grave mistake with good intentions.
Human connection goes much further than maintaining friendships through a screen. It goes further than having your avid following base of 768 people, whom maybe only 53 of you actually have met more than once. Connection, at its core, is about being seen. Feeling heard. Knowing that someone, one person, even an animal, cares about what you have to say. They care about how you feel. They care because they find the same solidarity within your presence that you do in theirs. Loneliness, my friends, can literally kill you.
Then we have Daedalus and his only-human missteps. Daedalus’s nearly fatal mistake was when he had built the King’s wife a wooden cow to hide in so she could mate with a white bull gifted to Minos, the King, by Poseidon. King Minos’s wife, Pasiphae, gave birth to the first Minotaur—a grown man with a bull’s head. Minos naturally fell angry and demanded Daedalus build a labyrinth to trap the Minotaur forever.
We fight—that’s the other dimension tied to connection. It’s the argumentative nature of human beings. Our minds, us as individuals—we are nothing more than a vessel carrying a compilation of experiences that we can’t even begin to comprehend the effects of. We can barely remember every single one of those said experiences. And yet, they perennially affect our reactions to external experiences. Why can’t we all just get along? Grown adults and children alike whimper this question in the face of many societal and global indiscretions, ranging from disagreements on Twitter to the ongoing wars America is waging in the Middle East. And me? I am no stranger to this question. But I always get drawn back by a string to the same answer.
Theseus was a Prince in Athens during Daedalus’s stay in Crete. Theseus was sent to the Labyrinth as a human sacrifice for the Minotaur. Ariadne, the royal daughter of Minos and Pasiphae, had fallen in love with Prince Theseus. She begged Daedalus to tell her how to defeat the Labyrinth. How do we escape this labyrinth? She pleaded endlessly. Daedalus told her if Theseus could secure a flaxen thread to the entrance of the Labyrinth and follow the string back out, he could escape.
Wouldn’t it be so simple to say the same for ourselves? Wouldn’t it be so easy if there was a string we could follow? For this labyrinth we are born into, the only known infallible escape known to date is death? And for those who don’t fancy dying, it’s vices like drugs, sex, alcohol; anything to numb the neuroses. Anything to avoid thinking about reality. What are we blinding ourselves to? I’m pleading with you.
We are independent beings. The technology behind screen-sharing your own thoughts and physically letting someone into your mind has not yet been developed. To communicate, we need to be expressly articulate in our thoughts and our actions and our intentions. But, you can never really know when someone is lying, can you? And not everyone is exactly well-versed or well-spoken enough to make their point as clearly as they intend. This is why we are divided.
Minos trapped Daedalus and his son, Icarus, in the Labyrinth. Theseus had left with Ariadne once he escaped, and Minos was, of course, enraged. Pasiphae released Daedalus and Icarus; after all, Daedalus did give her a son. Sort of. They couldn’t leave the island by sea—Minos controlled all of the ships. So, Daedalus fashioned wings out of feathers and wax and twine for him and Icarus to fly off the island with. Icarus flew too close to the sun, causing the wings to melt. The poor guy fell from the sky and died.
Daedalus lived out the rest of his life on the island of Sicani (now known as Sicily) after the King of Sicani’s daughters killed a revenge-fraught Minos.
Our labyrinth string is connection. The labyrinth itself is isolation. The goal, you ask? Finding people who want to understand, because as the days grow longer and we allegedly grow older, it’s more and more apparent that everyone wants to be special, and everyone wants to feel validated in everything they do. Consider that sometimes you are wrong. Sometimes your feelings, your actions, your intentions—they are wrong. And you are sitting there, arguing with someone who is only trying to help you understand. Why?
Because you cannot articulate quite exactly why you think you’re right. You can’t understand why you need to be right so badly.
A trap in the labyrinth is your ego as it gets in your way.
Discourse, sure, that’s one thing. We don’t all need to think the same way or share the same opinions. Then, we are nothing more than clones. But people die because of difference in opinion. Why? How do you prove your point to someone who is dead? What point does a person have to come to when they decide that they get to play God? Are you still human? Or, are you better than that? Or decidedly worse?
This generation, amongst many that have failed before us, is presented with yet another opportunity to develop globalized empathy. We can love again. We can understand. We are the most outspoken in history, the most open, the most of the most. In this sense, a lot of voices of reason get lost in the extremely loud chaos. Try to listen.