Second Story
To celebrate my successful defense, I planned to see my partner on the other side of the country. Being the responsible human being I am, I show up to the airport hours early to, if I have time, finish up some grading for my summer classes and get a head start on some blog writing for my favorite men’s website.
Upon sitting down, I get a notification: my flight is delayed and I will be missing my connection. It is 3:45 PM. Thinking quickly, I talk to a gate agent and we go through options. If I can get myself to the next city over in an hour, I have a chance at making another flight that they are willing to put me on that will get me to my connection.
If, of course, I can navigate rush hour traffic on a Friday and get there in time. Luckily, I did just that and I am, in fact, writing this piece from the air. So far, the past 36 hours have worked out remarkably well, but I do not think this has to do with chance.
Homer’s Odyssey
If you haven’t read the Odyssey as an adult outside of a school context, I recommend it for your summer reading list. In it, important to our story, we see Odysseus face hardships that main, kill, and destroy others with deft skill, relevant knowledge, and what seems like luck to us moderns. But it’s not really luck as we understand it. That thing that got Odysseus home is what Homer and other Ancient thinkers called Metis.
There’s no good English translation of metis: courage gets close, but this isn’t about reacting to fear bravely. Instead, I call it grace under fire. There are some people who, from a mix of experience, knowledge, and a little bit of intuition, simply act in situations where there is no time to sit down and think. It’s metis, I argue, that I have managed to develop in my life thus far, and it serves me exceptionally well.