Professor Gilchrist is about as Canadian as they come. Which, fortunately, I don’t mind. In fact I find I find it hilarious most of the time, like I’m watching Terrance and Phillip from
South Park or the MacKenzie Brothers from
Strange Brew. Only instead of fart jokes or calling people hosers, we talk about tyranny, the common good and political power.
“I was like a one-man army, like Charlton Heston in "Omega Man." You ever see it, eh? Beauty.”
After first relating Machiavelli’s
The Prince to Francis Ford Coppola’s
The Godfather (awesome), Professor Gilchrist explained that in a Machiavellian view, glory and immortality are the ultimate in ‘virtue’ or success. Causing, through your actions, your own immortality. To illustrate this he used a quote from the movie
Troy. Achilles’ mother tells this to him as he must make a choice whether or not to will follow the Greeks and go to war against the Trojans:
“If you stay in Larissa, you will find peace. You will find a wonderful woman, and you will have sons and daughters, who will have children. And they'll all love you and remember your name. But when your children are dead, and their children after them, your name will be forgotten… If you go to Troy, glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories for thousands of years! And the world will remember your name. But if you go to Troy, you will never come back…for your glory walks hand-in-hand with your doom. And I shall never see you again.”
And it struck me; this was analogous to my dilemma. Like Achilles, I was posed with a choice of destiny. If I go to Brighton, Colin and I will have fun and the snow will be great. But next year or the year after, the memory will fade and life will just go on. Yet if I go to the Canyons, I will ride with my crew, we will make an epic video and the glory of the season will live on for generations upon generations. Go to Brighton and enjoy a fleeting moment, or go to Canyons and live this season forever...
“You're gonna get killed chasing after your damn fortune and glory!”
...and so I follow the Greeks to the Canyons this season...and glory...shall be mine (or at least like a really bad-@ss good time).
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