Odysseus called himself noboday, or no one, depending on the translation–his answer to strangers. In ancient Greece that was also the name of the blind beggar. Homer knew. Odysseus knew. And what it meant, then and now, is that Odysseus was dependent on the Greek code of sympathetic fortune, for the Greeks understood the capriciousness of luck. I’ve been in mind of this lately as the Ryan budget waves from the flag pole of the House of Representatives–the Ryan budget which essentially seeks to destroy social security disability and medicaid and which aims to kill medicare by throwing it to the states–remember the states? They can’t even keep the roads repaired. And so in the near future, whether Ryan has his way, or is merely stopped at the edge of catastrophe, (which means the budget will be siphoned in a sequential way like the death of a thousand cuts) Americans will soon be calling one another “Noboday” for millions will be beggars who were once barely in the middle class. The upcoming battle over the budget is the battle over our ability to understand our essential nature as a nation. Homer understood that Greece was cruel. Our nation was supposed to represent a different experiment.
Planet of the Blind 