Odyssey Zeitgeist

Believing Is Seeing - Why I Chose To See The Odyssey

"It told you what you most want is what you most can't have. And what you most can’t have is what you already had, and lost." - Odysseus

Released in theaters on July 17, 2026, The Odyssey is not just on the big screen, the Odyssey is everywhere.  Why?

One reason, probably, is because the Heroes Journey is a universal theme in this human existence, even if you only ever make it to the refusal of the call.  Something resonates, something unspoken, unexplainable makes us feel.  Myth, legend, that is what good stories are made of.  That is what makes tales of Life, Love and Loss timeless.

Leading up to the release of this film there was a lot of commentary.  After it's release more and more people started to weigh in.  See it.  Don't see it.  Definitely see it.  Definitely don't see it.  So who do you believe?

In times like this, I only trust one person...myself.  So, I went to see the movie.  I did this so I could heed the advice of the Oracle from the Matrix, another epic tale of the heroes journey, and "MAKE UP MY OWN DAMN MIND".  

This seems to be the way I've always done things and I suppose it probably always will be.  Kind of like "don't knock it til you try it" and hope that "curiosity doesn't kill the cat."  Measured risks.  Even if seeing a movie is not that adventurous and I am not that brave for crossing the threshold of a theater, it could still be an important part of my own heroes journey. Indeed, I believe it was.

This is not a movie review, per se, that said, I did enjoy the film.  The three hours went by quickly, my emotions moved, but my body did not, not even for a requisite restroom break.  (The IMAX theater did have vibrating seats and there was a scene in act III that made me jump.) Sadly, I didn't get to sit through the final credits, which I normally love to do, especially with epic movies. By that time, my bladder won the war...you get the point.

My biggest takeaway and the part that probably impacted me the most in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, was the theme of coming home, reverence for and commitment to all that was Home.  Devotion to Home.  His Lover as Home.  Fighting for Home.

Maybe not the most intellectual or interesting theme to have unearthed, not that unique, but certainly universal and something that is important to me and others as well.

Like Dorothy who discovers in Oz, there's no place like home, we spend most of our heroes journey to end up back where we began.  Yet we are changed.  We travel the whole world, refusing to return, we figure things out and end up, atoned, transformed and finally free.  We return Home.  

And yet, one part of us truly can't go home again.  We are strangers in our own house, and like Odysseus, we must hide our true identity our authentic selves, under a cloak of silence.  One may ask, for how long?

When we do get home, do they want us? Do they want us in the house? Do they want us out of the house? Do they want who we've become?  Do they want the reality or only the us they have always imagined and hoped us to be? 

Where is our home? Who is our home? Will we arrive back home? 

The universality of the homecoming theme intrigues me and the fact that The Odyssey is EVERYWHERE now, including my daily discovery playlist and on the cover of Life's Special Edition Magazine, tells me that it means SOMETHING, even if it's simply the fact that everyone is trying to cash in.  

It's leading the Zeitgeist, for now anyway and I would love to lean into this energy, to understand the world better and in return perhaps, even better understand me.

In life and in love, there is an essence that remains, our soul's scent if you will, it's fingerprint, that remains across time and ages.  It's our very own heroes journey, our very own Odyssey our very own return to our hearts true home.