Apollo

Greek Mitology

THere is an ideal, an utopic to follow. This ideal is Apollo, the greek god. This brings about Nietsche and Apollonian instinc

Apollo is a representation of Discipline, strenght, assertivity, vigor and power.

There is a common representation of physical vigor and strenght. Because strength is required for man. In the ancient Greece, you’re either going to work, become a warrior, plant or become an Aristocrath. Or music. All activities are related to the physical effort and, how much you can endure in the world defines what is your worth to the world. It is not a matter or social construct, it is better to be strong than weak. Strenght has always been a virtue, meanwhile weakness is a vice.

No matter the ideology of environment, the will to survive and procreate exists. And

In the 19th century there has beem the victorian period and the victorian masculinity. This is a representation of the pride of being a man, thus, there were all this labor for showing the manhood.

When a man is not a slave to his sexual passions, he is associated as having high intelligence.

The ideal of success and strenght, is associated with the masculine. The more distant a man is from the feminine, the higher is their value in masculine virtues. There needed to be a physical vigor because of survival. It is how man used to have abilities to provide for their family.

The victorian man is man with mustaches, topper, pipes and monoglasses, the physical athletic strength, and the will to compete. Sports like boxing, running, and lifting. The way to walk, sit, communicate, gesticule. Things like, having hair, having a volumious mustache, being elegant, showing richness and purchase power, the line is associated with the masculine and the curve is associated with the feminine. Dark and plain colors, tuxedos.

This is the collective idea to distantiate from the feminine. There counts the association with the heaviness, retitude, emotional control. The psyche there is strenght, courage, rispitude, imperativity, and the will of being a hero. To protect, serve society, and the collective.

The masculinity was worked and shaped with intent. There was a culture that tells how man should behave. And shape to be strong and self-reliant, mature and cultural.

Man should have a work that was dignified by how masculine their labor was. A heavy-machine opperator was more dignified than an artist that stays home paiting. Man were made to work outside of home and come back only after the commercial hours. Meanwhile woman would stay at home caring for the family.

In the aspects of sports and activities, it was required of man that they had a keen for competition and the movement of the body. Violence, fightings, conflicts. All of these are cultural aspects of how a man should behave..

Another aspect of it is the trophy wife, which is toxic. This is also associated with having a potential to conquer high quality beautiful woman. Having affairs and more than one woman. The more the better.

This association is both positive and negative.

This isn’t a social construct. There is a difference in the mind and body where culture becomes just a translation of previous behaviors of what it means to be a masculine person.

Tales

There was once a brother who was very eager to seek goodness.

Being very disturbed by the demon of lust, he came to a hermit and told him about his thoughts.

The hermit was inexperienced and when he heard all this, he was shocked, and said he was a wicked brother, unworthy of his monk’s habit because he had thoughts like that.

When the brother heard this, he despaired, left his cell and started on his way back to the world.

But by God’s providence, Abba Apollo met him. Seeing he was so upset and sad, he said to him, ‘Son, why are you so unhappy?’

The brother was very embarrassed, and at first said nothing. But when Apollo pressed him to say what was happening to him, he admitted everything and said, ‘It is because lustful thoughts trouble me.

I confessed them to that hermit, and he says I now have no hope of salvation. So I have despaired, and am on my way back to the world.’

When Apollo heard this, he went on asking questions like a wise doctor, and gave him this counsel,

‘Do not be cast down, son, nor despair of yourself. Even at my age and with my experience of the spiritual life, I am still troubled by thoughts like yours. Do not fail now; this trouble cannot be cured by our efforts, but only by God’s mercy. Do as I say and go back to your cell.’

The brother did so. Then Apollo went to the cell of the hermit who had made the brother despair.

He stood outside the cell, and prayed to the Lord with tears, saying,

‘Lord, you permit men to be tempted for their good; transfer the war that brother is suffering to this hermit: let him learn by experience in his old age what many years have not taught him, and so let him find out how to sympathize with people undergoing this kind of temptation.’

As soon as he ended his prayer he saw a black man standing by the cell firing arrows at the hermit. As though he had been wounded, the hermit began to totter and lurch like a drunken man. When he could bear it no longer, he came out of his cell, and set out on the same road by which the young man started to return to the world.

Apollo understood what had happened, and went to meet him. He came up to him and said, ‘Where are you going? Why are you so upset?’

When the hermit saw that the holy Apollo understood what had happened, he was ashamed and said nothing. Apollo said to him, ‘Go back to your cell and see in others your own weakness and keep your own heart in order.

For either you were ignorant of the devil in spite of your age, or you were contemptuous, and did not deserve to gain strength by struggling with the devil as all other men must.

But struggle is not the right word, when you could not stand up to his attack for one day. This has happened to you because of the young monk.

He came to you because he was being attacked by the common enemy of us all. You ought to have given him words of consolation to help him against the devil’s attack but instead you drove him to despair.

You did not remember the wise man’s saying, which orders us to deliver the men who are drawn towards death, and not to cease to redeem men ready to be killed. You did not remember our Saviour’s parable, “You should not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax” (Matt. 12:20).

No one can endure the enemy’s clever attacks, nor quench, nor control the leaping fire natural to the body, unless God’s grace preserves us in our weakness. In all our prayers we should ask for His mercy to save us, so that he may turn aside this scourge which is aimed even at you.

For He makes a man to grieve, and then lifts him up to salvation; He strikes, and His hand heals; He humbles and exalts; He gives death and then life; He leads to hell and brings back from hell (1 Sam. 2:6).

So Apollo prayed again, and at once the hermit was set free from his inner war. Apollo urged him to ask God to give him a wise heart, in order to know how best to speak.