Lotus Eater

The Fruit of a Lotus...
The Seed of a Lotus...

There is a story, The Lotus Eater, written by William Somerset Maugham about a certain Thomas Wilson who gives up his job to live an idyllic life in Capri. He plans to live for 25 years there and have enough money to live until then, following which he would kill himself. This ridiculously beautiful story is supposed to be inspired by Homer's Odyssey. Odysseus, a mythical Greek warrior and his men have stopped at an island where the seeds of the lotus plant are used as a narcotics. After consuming the seeds, his men become drugged, grow idle and refuse to continue their journey. Lotus eaters are therefore people who live an idle, comfortable life who do not work and do not think and care very much about anything else. In my hometown, Taiping, some of the Chinese eat lotus seeds that are freshly picked from the lakes. I enjoy eating them too, but nay, they are not narcotics. One must not take the word of a book!

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