Special: What's your 'enough'?
Hey there!
If you like The Daily Brief, here’s something else you might enjoy. This is a story about a clash of Titans, the birth of humanity, the gift of fire and the woman who ruined the world — and what all this can teach an investor!
All mythologies feature huge foundational wars. Greek mythology is no different. Their foundational war is ‘Titanomachy’ — the War of the Titans. This was a ten-year long war between the Titans, or the old Gods, led by Kronos, and the Olympians, or the new Gods, led by Zeus. The war marked the changing of the guard from the old to the new.
(If you’re wondering what the hell this has to do with finance, I say: hold on — good things come to those who wait. Anyway, back to the story.)
Fast forward ten years: Zeus and the new Gods have won the war. There’s peace and prosperity everywhere. It’s supposed to be a happy moment. But despite thrashing the Titans and becoming the King of the Gods, Zeus is bored and lonely, because whenever he looks down, he sees that he has nothing to rule over.
His is a beautiful world, filled with majestic mountains, seas, birds, mythical beasts, lush forests, and more. But all the gods and other divine creatures under his rule simply try to suck up to him. He can’t bear to imagine an eternity of this. Zeus confesses his sadness to his buddy, Prometheus, during what might be the world’s first therapy session. True story. #MentalHealth
Prometheus is a Titan. The Titans were the mortal enemies of the Olympians. But Prometheus — whose very name means “forethought” — had been too smart to side with his fellow Titans during the war. He could see that the Olympians were destined to win, and so, he switched over to the other side, dragging his brother Epimetheus along.
Anyway, Zeus now has a divine idea to overcome his boredom: he decides to create a new race of beings who look just like the gods, and could worship, play with, and amuse the gods. Zeus asks Prometheus to create these beings since he had a knack for such things. In other words, he tasks Prometheus with creating humans.
Zeus has one condition, though: after the creation, humans are never to have fire. He’s worried that with fire, the humans might eventually rise to challenge the gods.
On Zeus’ request, Prometheus designs humans in the image of the gods. It’s just dudes at first — Zeus is a notorious playboy, and his wife is sick of his dalliances. Gods — they’re just like us, huh? So, to reduce temptation and avoid pissing his wife off, he tells Prometheus: dudes only.
Prometheus follows through. He takes some mud and shapes it into the first dudes. The Olympians breathe life and wisdom into them all. They begin life as a happy bunch. There’s no poverty, no famine, and no conflict. Earth’s a paradise, and humanity flourishes. As their chief designer, Prometheus grows to love his happy little dudes, and spends increasing amounts of time with them, teaching them everything — from farming, to crafts, to medicine and writing. What a gem of a guy!
As humanity flourishes, Prometheus sees great promise in this happy bunch of dudes. But something’s gnawing at him. He’s sad that he’s only allowed to create dudes. It’s kinda made humanity one-dimensional. He’s also sad that his dudes can’t access fire. The answer slowly comes to him: for men to achieve their God-like destiny, they need a spark. And so, after much thought, Prometheus decides to steal fire from the Gods, despite the fact that this would mean certain death for him. This is how humanity finally gets fire and truly begins to flourish.
Zeus is angry at Prometheus’ betrayal — and I mean really angry, like an anger that requires eternal and divine therapy.
Not only is he pissed at Prometheus, he’s also angry at the arrogance of all those puny dudes. Who did they think they were, using fire? His first instinct is to blow Prometheus to pieces, but he restrains himself. Prometheus would have to wait. Instead, he turns his attention to the humans and decides to punish them first. And for this, he comes up with a rather cruel and unusual punishment.
Zeus orders his son, Hephaestus, to create the first woman. She’s endowed with various gifts from the gods, including the arts, beauty and love, but also, cunning. She’s named Pandora, or the ‘all-gifted’.
Once she’s brought to life, Zeus gives Pandora a jar. He tells her that the jar is decorative, and that she can never, ever open it, no matter what. Pandora then is presented to Epimetheus, Prometheus’s brother, as a gift (Yeahhh, I know, the ancients were pretty icky). Epimetheus is a fool. His very name means “one who thinks after.” This quality of his will soon come to bite humanity in the hind part of their collective lower torso.
Prometheus knew that Zeus would seek revenge, and had warned his brother not to accept any gift from the Gods. But when Epimetheus sees Pandora, he instantly falls for her. True to form, he only thinks afterwards.
Pandora and Epimetheus get married. They’re both madly in love. Life could not be any better. But even in the bliss of her new marriage, Pandora just can’t forget the jar. She keeps wondering what’s inside. One day, she almost gives in. Taken by the allure of the jar, she picks it up and thinks: if the jar had nothing of importance, why did Zeus ask her not to open it? She twists the lid of the jar, almost opening it. But at the very last moment…
Curious about what happens next? You can read the full piece here. Do also check out all the other in-depth stories we write, over at Subtext. Trust us, it's worth the dive!