Achilles Heel

Achilles Heel by Antoine Borel Rogat

Suddenly a story comes to you for no reason at all or for perhaps it is that pain in the ankle. In this case it was the latter. In Greek mythology we learn of Achilles, a hero of the Trojan War. His mother felt her young son was destined for greatness so she dipped him into the River Styx to make him immortal. It worked– except for one spot that didn’t get dipped. That spot was his heel where she was holding him.  The dipped heel became known as the “Achilles heel, and it was his one vulnerable spot.  In the Trojan War, after many Trojan soldiers were slain, we are not surprised to learn that Paris managed to shoot an arrow into Achilles’ heel. It was Apollo who guided Paris’s arrow as a revenge for Achilles’ killing of Apollo’s son.

Today, I find myself with my own Achilles heel.  It is actually a bone spur or, more technically,  a  “plantar fasciitis”. I certainly feel mortal down there.  I have been a runner for many years and although now I only run a few miles a week I am even finding it difficult to walk fast.  It has slowed me down.

Achilles’ story evokes physiology and metaphor. I have my very real “heel” and its painful reminder every time I walk on it. And then there is the metaphorical part that addresses vulnerability in a more general way.   It seems to be true that our enemies seek out the Achilles Heel or the vulnerable part of the person. I remember often being told in my publishing career that I was not capable of “going for the jugular.” I certainly was not very good at it. On the other hand, that deficit also contributed to my success.

Our man Achilles also appears in a famous paradox. He was a notoriously fast runner, but the philosopher Zeno said that if a tortoise and Achilles entered a race and the tortoise got a bit of a head start, Achilles would not be able to catch the tortoise. Why?  It’s too complicated for me to follow but it is a form of logical sleight-of-hand that concludes that every time Achilles would clear the distance between himself and the tortoise, the tortoise would have moved ahead a slight bit and this would increase the distance Achilles would need to cover.  It turns out that the Tortoise outsmarted Achilles in convincing him that this would be the outcome (so Achilles abandoned the race in despair).  But what I do understand from this is that the faster runner does not always win the race!

Is there any message in all of this? Know your Achilles heel and try the best you can to protect it. But also remember that your weaknesses are connected to your strengths, and they complete you as a person.  Remember the story about the tortoise and Achilles. The faster runner  may not always be the winner. Perhaps the pain which is causing me to slow down is helping me in another way.

To put this in a somewhat different way, Rick Fields a Buddhist writer and poet, wrote this about fear and vulnerability in this poem:

Absolutely Pure

This world –
absolutely pure
As is.
Behind the fear,
Vulnerability.
Behind that,
Sadness,
then compassion
And behind that the vast sky.

~ Rick Fields