The Myth of Er

The Myth of Er(or the case for being ordinary…) Plato, Book 10, The Republic Er was a Greek soldier wounded in battle who, fallen in a coma and believed dead by the gods, was sent by mistake to the afterlife. There, he ended up assisting in a type of... More

The Myth of Er(or the case for being ordinary…)
Plato, Book 10, The Republic
Er was a Greek soldier wounded in battle who, fallen in a coma and believed dead by the gods, was sent by
mistake to the afterlife.
There, he ended up assisting in a type of Unversal Judgement.
The poor fellow saw
the souls of his dead comrade-in-arms, first judged and then, as the case may be, either sent high up in
heaven or to an underground abyss.

And what, might you ask, does this have to do with being ordinary?
At a certain point Er saw thousands and thousands of souls that had just completed their term, or enjoyed
their rest, and were ready to re-incarnate.
To these the Fates, the goddesses of Destiny, tossed some stones
before them upon which they had described different types of lives.
Each soul was given a choice as to their
life of preference.
Thus Er saw Ajax, the son of Telamon grabbing the life of a lion, Thamyras that of a
nightingale, Atalanta that of an Olympic athlete, and Odysseus, at Less