Eydaimonia

Here and Now

As centuries passed over you, and generations played with your meaning, you have come to be called “happiness”, though you weren’t exactly this in the beginning. The “ey” those Greeks had put as one of your two parts to form you, means “good”, “in a good way”, something in a virtuous manner performed. And then comes the Daimon or Demon as the second part which wasn’t a bad thing back then; it meant a spirit that protects, and stands beside. So, being in eydaimonia means “sensing a guardian angel in your life”. To me, there are no chosen ones that have it; it is here for everyone, but the thing is for us to uncover it. It’s simple but not easy; the Herculean labours are needed. With each one, you clear the personality’s eyesight and proceed. I am never alone; that “ey” spirit is my connector to my Self, and I sense it more frequently, as I struggle with my “Hydras” and the rest. My ancestors and other civilizations put all the wisdom in the myths we read like fairy tales; By decoding the symbols and working of material’s merging into its divine counterpart, horizons get gradually widened up for us to sense and be pure existence. Oh, it’s not romantic, unrealistic, or something theoretical; it is proved like mathematical equations, as we move on with the stages of initiation. Eydaimonia is present here and now, and I sense it within everything I do when I continuously and wholly coordinate with “now”.

Note: eydaimonia= ey (which means “good”/ “in a good manner”/ “virtuously”, pronounced as “ef”)+ Daimon (pronounced as “démon”). Original Greek word: Ευδαιμονία = εὖ + δαίμων

Initially in epic poetry, Gods were called “Demons”. It comes from the verbs “daio” (pronounced “déo”) and “daiomai” (pronounced “déome”) which means “to share” (I share to everybody their fate). Therefore a Demon is one who shares, who gives shares, and consequently “one who determines the fate of a (hu)man”. Demons were thought to be just as numerous as the people. Although coexisting with the word “God”, however, the “Demon” referred to the impersonal and indefinable Power, while God referred to the anthropomorphic divine entity. The concept of Demon was equivalent to Fate.

Furthermore, in the word “Demon”, they attributed the meaning of the guardian angel. Hence the word “eydaimonia” identified the one who has the favor of the Demon.

There are references to “Demons” by Homer, Hesiod, Plato, Plutarch, Herodotus, etc. They are mainly referred to as deities acting in the heavenly space between Gods and humans. They have a bidirectional relationship; they are in a way the intermediate messenger of the Gods to the earthly world and vice versa.

This is a response to the following prompt/ invitation by one of my favorite fellow writers on Medium, Joseph Lieungh

And here is the original prompt-story:

Anthi Psomiadou — CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International : Credit must be given to the creator/ Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted/ No derivatives