The Lotus Eaters: Remembrance and Coherence in a World of Addiction and Distraction

By Philip Shepherd
Guest Writer for Wake Up World

In chapter nine of Homer’s epic The Odyssey, a strange event is described: Odysseus arrived with his crew in the country of the Lotus Eaters, and chose three scouts to reconnoitre. On encountering the local inhabitants, the scouts were offered not hostility but food: a type of honey-sweet lotus fruit, which they devoured readily. But the more they ate, the more forgetful they became – forgetful of returning to Odysseus, forgetful even of their desire to return home. So deep was their craving for more of the fruit that when Odysseus and his men found them, they had to be carried forcibly back to the ships where, still weeping, they were tied beneath the rowing benches.

The story of the Lotus Eaters has a special relevance for us, for we too are driven by cravings. What really strikes home for me, though, isn’t so much the addictive longing the fruit creates, as the forgetfulness it induces. And more specifically, the fact that those eating the fruit seemed unaware of its power to induce forgetfulness.