The epic search for a meaningful existence in modernity: An ancient and existential exploration in the name of death

Who am I and how do I live meaningfully? These questions seem innate in man's DNA, perhaps two constants the human race has forever endured. Underlying these questions is the need to connect, to engage in meaningful relationships with the self, through the self, with others. These connections take the form of stories.;However relentless the questions, the factors catalyzing them and the attempts to respond have evolved in scope and nature concurrently with man's home---the universe.;In fact, the evolution of the universe has profoundly affected how man responds. Namely, as these studies will theorize, the introduction of a virtual realm and the prospect of a deathless existence--both of which are to said to culminate in the near future in a phenomenon called Singularity---have already contributed to the current generation's sense of loss, disconnect, and fragmentation, often lacking meaningful connections to an authentic self-narrative and to the human Story.;While progress takes new forms (cyberspace and Singularity), the symptoms of a diseased, displaced peoples shows itself in familiar ways: living in and for the moment, postponing aging, eliminating death, resisting Absolutes, and insisting on the self. These factors may be most familiar to the 19th and 20th century Existentialists whose own self-creating lives were driven by a similar crisis of being; but they are equally apparent in the narratives our earliest storytelling ancestors crafted, namely in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey.;The majority of this study attempts to substantiate this theory through an Existential reading of the epics, primarily of how epic heroes respond to the questions of being: from an aesthetic to ethical response, to becoming a knight of faith or Ubermensch. And this analytical reading ultimately culminates in determining a predominant factor in fostering an authentic, engaged existence: the reality of death.;If these propositions can be logically proven true, what then becomes of the individual who may one day, perhaps sooner than we think, find himself existing in a virtual world of abstractions? And a physical world on the brink of eliminating death? The final chapter attempts to use the Existential study of Homer's epics to garner a more informed understanding of the next phase in earthly existence in terms of living authentically, and acting ethically.