reflection and relaxation

When you are sick, there's a day about halfway through your illness when if you take it easy and nuke your illness with meds you could be better tomorrow. If you do anything fun however you'll be sick for another week.

I was at that point on Saturday. Saturday is the day for fun things but I knew if I went out and did anything I'd spend the next week paying for it.

Being the only person still on the floor gives you a lot of time to reflect on your week, like the themes of Antigone .

In many ways Antigone, all the Oedipus saga really, is like an illness. One action that seems relatively harmless, like a cough escalates into an unstoppable wave.

When Antigone begins Creon is in that crossroads day where you either sacrifice your social life or your health. He has the option of either allowing an honorable burial to an enemy of Thebes that would benefit his family and please the gods or attempt to unite Thebes through vilifying a common enemy even if it goes against the gods. Really it's a "screwed either way" set up.

Creon chooses the short game. By vilifying the brother who attacked Thebes he could temporarily unite the people against a common enemy but that kind of unity is short lived. In this case very short lived as Antigone goes on to disturb the peace. A better long game would have been to bury both with honors as "sons of Thebes" and say that "with this burial we put to rest the horrors of our past and through honor seek to rebuild for a stronger future." In the end uniting over building something is a better political strategy.

Creon was a bad king because he lacked an understanding of the long game.