Paris was one of the fifty sons of King Priam of Troy. Fifty!
According to the Greeks, he was responsible for causing the Trojan War. Perhaps you recall this bit from the horrible movie Troy? In brief, Paris was handsome, wooed Helen so that she left her husband Menelaus, King of Sparta, and then she fled to Troy. Bad mistake.
The thing with Paris is that his handsomeness was a gift from Aphrodite, the goddess of love. Or perhaps Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, was his gift from Aphrodite? I can’t recall so let’s say he was gifted his looks in return for choosing Aphrodite as the fairest of goddesses.
Quite the gift regardless. But where there is love (lust, passion), there is war.
The story of the gift of handsomeness is the story of the golden apple. In the story a wonderful party was held and everyone was invited. Everyone except Eris, goddess of discord and strife, although you know she arrives at end of the night for the bar fights anyway.
As you can imagine Eris was annoyed and showed up. She brought with her a beautiful golden apple. And it was no party gift. Eris threw the apple into the room amongst Aphrodite (love), Hera (power) and Athena (wisdom). The apple was inscribed “to the fairest.”
Ho hum. All three beauties demanded the apple. It came to blows practically and Paris was hauled over to act as the judge.
Difficult choice wouldn’t you say? All three can wreck havoc on a mortal. Well Aphrodite won, and so did Eris.
I’m reminded of this story because Darren Barefoot has posted a funny note about Chris Pirillo being approached by the producer of “Beauty and the Geek.” The producer’s name is Eve, I thought of apples, you know how it goes … another example of thought gymnastics.
Read Darren Barefoot on Chris or go straight to Chris’s posting of the voice message.
S.M.A.R.T.
Who would you have chosen?