All that is past...(you know the rest)

Today in class, Prof. Sexson related the story of Zeus and Semele to the class. After reading Shoni's blog on the topic, I remembered this song by Russell Crowe that follows the same major themes. The most recurrent line is quite fitting to the story of Zeus and Semele: "Are you ready to take the weight of a man?" Semele was not, and it begs the question "why?" Why do we only want to deal with a diminished, restricted version of who a person is rather than the fullness of passion and fear, virtue and vice that make us human? Why can we not "handle the truth"?