Well, here is the rub...as I said in the beginning, devil or god, and if one believes Dante, Alexander is listed in one of the circles of Dante's Inferno. There is a painting in Italy in a church of Assisi that does depict this. Many people find the life of Alexander to be demonic rather than godly, and that is one of the problems in dealing with people's perceptions, that Alexander is either god or demon.
And one would say to me as a girl in court reporting years ago said to me, why you? Yes, what can I do to deliver Alexander's story as I have come to know it so that people will believe that Alexander is either god, devil, or superman?
As the Biblical injunction says, a man goeth without honor in his own country...there is a lot of truth to that at times, for the saying familiarity breeds contempt adds a bit to those kind of pithy sayings as well. The people who are the closest to you and know you best wonder the most about your admitting to memories of people whose fame is such that that alone stamps one as a "lunatic", a wannabe, which is a choice word amongst the fans of any of these illustrious people.
Do I claim that I am them? In the sense, that I am able to recall aspects of their lives that are both known and unknown to others, that I know the real feelings and emotions of each one at various times...for instance, the time that touched me most about George Washington when he broke down and cried, and I woke up sobbing. I also had had the feeling that I was like myself when a teenager in Ohio then, and that impressed me no end as well. I had not realized that at all.
I actually loved Washington when I had that memory then for I knew his innermost feelings, and it really hit home with me at what a good man that he had been, especially to his men, and later when I held that ram in my arms, and realized that Alexander was equally as concerned for his men, I could see the sameness in each of them that they cared truly for their soldiers.
I actually came to like myself better as a teenager than I had done when I had been one, being so hypercritical and sensitive to criticism, and full of inferiority feelings about my attractiveness. I eventually studied George Washington and learned how he also had had facial flaws, born of small pox, and that he had had setbacks and rejections when dating and trying to find a wife. One learns that being one's self is not always being the most popular person in the world to many people, but that being true to one's self is crucial to liking one's self.
I have my moments when I look in the mirror and I can see a look that reminds me of each one of them, not all at the same time, but on different occasions. It is the inner person that makes the face become what it is, whether frowning, smiling, laughing, crying, morose and gloomy, joyful and happy, whatever, it is a condition that is within that causes our facial expression and even our posture to betray us.
So whether to others I measure up to what they expect an Alexander, or a Louis, or a George to be like today does not bother me at all.
I realized that through Alexander I had been cut off in my life teaching experience in a way that did cut my life to the quick and I caught on pretty fast then to some things going on around me that makes me suspicious even yet at how easy it is to manipulate people.
Of course, at that time, we were wrapped up in Jesus Christ Superstar and I will omit that from this blog for the sake of keeping it to the reliving of real people in this lifetime, and not into the study of another god in history, that of Jesus Christ.
Because I began my teaching in Greek Literature knowing a Greek woman from Michigan, and I seemed to end it meeting with another Greek woman in California, I am suspicious now that a lot of this had been deliberately manipulated. Some may have thought Socrates, but finally I realize now that it is Alexander.
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