Loving an Idea

So, here’s a good old story for you. Used to be this guy in Greece named Pygmalion, famous sculptor, brilliant guy, absolutely fantastic artist in marble. He was applauded all throughout the land, but he always felt that he was unfulfilled: he was missing something in his life, something the Muses had put there, and (as so frequently happens in this kind of story) if he was unable to find it, he would instead make it himself.

What he felt he was missing was a woman. And so from the finest unblemished marble he carved a statue, his Galatea, her every curve exquisite, her face refined and delicate, her hands untouched by any labour. Upon that statue he doted, day and night, building up the idea of what kind of woman she might be, perfect for him.

These being the days of antiquity, there were quite a lot of deities still around, and they generally did happen to hear the most heartfelt of prayers. One such goddess was Aphrodite, who some called Venus: in that pantheon, she was what one might term the epitome of pulchritudinous femininity. Another was Hera, wife to the god Zeus, who epitomized motherhood, family, and all that. And then there was Artemis of the hunt, who embodied freedom, childbirth and chastity — don’t worry about the paradox, these are deities, they’re bereft of such rules.

So Aphrodite looked at the statue and said, “Wow! That’s the spitting image of me!” Never you mind that the pantheon were all shapeshifters, see above. “And he truly adores her. I should see about giving her some life.” So she breathed exactly that into the statue, which gradually took on a semblance of life: the marble softened into flesh, the heart began to beat, blood began to flow.

Hera looked at the former statue and gave a harrumph. “Well, she’s very pretty and all that, but she’s utterly useless. I don’t imagine she’d be able to raise a kid without a brain.” So the goddess asked for a favour from Athena, who was all about the wisdom, and together they gave Galatea enough neurons to actually be more than just a lump of flesh. Much more, really.

Finally, Artemis stepped in and went, “Okay, so far so good, but if she’s gonna be a mom, she’s going to not need to fold at the slightest push.” So Artemis fashioned a spine out of the same hardwood as her arrows, and plopped it in there — along with a goodly helping of free will. No sense having a spine if you don’t have the intention of using it.

The three took a long look at the fruits of their labours, nodded, and found it good. And then they retired to have some Mai Tais or something. After all, being a goddess is thirsty work.

So, Pygmalion woke up the next morning, saw Galatea standing there, living, breathing, and being generally as confused as any girl would be upon suddenly, well, existing. The schmuck fell to his knees in supplication and gave his thanks to Aphrodite — and only Aphrodite. She was, after all, the goddess of beauty, and who but her could be responsible for his own beautiful creation coming to life?

This did not impress the other two. And in the days of antiquity, one did one’s very best not to piss off Artemis, let alone Hera.

But let us return, for a time, to those other two. In his way, Pygmalion was as loving as anyone could expect — he doted upon Galatea, and she upon him, as the creator of the statue and the statue herself. In the fullness of time (read: approximately 10 minutes) they found themselves entwined, and, in a rather more appropriate fullness, Galatea soon found herself with child.

There is, however, no marble without its weave of cracks, no life without its idiosyncrasies. Hera and Artemis had done their job very well indeed, and soon Pygmalion found that Galatea had ideas. Ideas like finding herself an education, amongst other things. Differences from the spec of the perfect, ideal, adoring wife which he had conjured up, who would cook him food and bear his children and want for nothing more.

In that expected nine months, Galatea gave birth to a lovely daughter, Paphos, for whom a city on Cyprus was eventually named. And for some time they were able to reconcile over her! Family does, after all, tend to be a connective thread even when nothing else seems to be there.

But it all became too much in the end. Unable to fully reconcile the idea of Galatea with the reality he saw before him — of a beautiful woman who wanted to live life to the fullest, and sometimes that life didn’t have him as more than an observer on the sidelines — Pygmalion took to the amphorae. And shortly thereafter, Galatea took Paphos and departed for a better life, because it turns out that she wanted to be someone other than Pygmalion’s trophy wife.

I like to think she hooked up with one of Artemis’ priestesses and lived happily ever after, raising their daughter as two loving moms do. It’s certainly a better ending than that other telling of this story.

For one thing, fewer sledgehammers are involved.

There’s a moral to this story. I know, Aesop I’m not, but it’s still there. And it can be summed up as this: Don’t fall in love with an idea. If you fall in love with someone, then they might disappoint you, they might excite you, they might thrill you, they might turn out to be something entirely different than you expected, but you can still love them for who they are.

But if you fall in love with an idea, reality will always shatter it. Sometimes sledgehammers aren’t even a part of it.