Calypso's Tragedy

Have you guys heard of the name Calypso? She's a goddess featured in the musicals, born alone in an island, learned to live for herself while waiting for someone to show her that she's not alone. I don't know why I somewhat relate to her character, maybe because I also long for someone to show me that maybe the love I give is something I can also receive.

One day as she sits on the shore, she sees a man drift to edge of the beach. She saw him as a glimmer of hope, a sign that maybe she can still give love, and that she may still receive it as well. She pursues the man, tempting him with everything for him to stay, loving him despite knowing that the man cannot love her back. This made me realize that "wanting" love is really as dangerous as "needing" it.

As we want love, we convince ourselves unconsciously that we need. Longing for the person we think that will love us to the point that it will hurt not just emotionally or mentally, but it will torture us physically. In the story she is seen as one of the challenges for Odysseus, trapping him for years in an island he wants to leave, letting her love turn into greed. But looking at her character deeply, she's just any random mortal, looking for someone, something to make her feel less lonely.

I think at one point or at one short moment we all felt like Calypso, pushing someone to at least tell us that they "love" us even if it's a lie. We crave for those tender words to hug us, for those words to comfort our illusions and moments we thought we spent with the person we love. But in the end, despite it hurting to the point that we don't know ourselves, we really can't be sorry for loving someone to the point that we lose our grip on ourselves and on reality. And in the end maybe it's true that sometimes we really lose our intelligence when it comes to love.

Maybe we don't really lose our intelligence when it comes to love. Maybe we simply become so afraid of being alone again that we begin to mistake pain for devotion, presence for affection, and being wanted for being loved. And perhaps that is Calypso's tragedy: not that she loved Odysseus, but that she wanted so desperately to be loved in return that she could no longer bear to let him go.