Prometheus who changed his mind
Prometheus Bound, Peter Paul Rubens (1611-1612)
The myth of Prometheus goes like this:
Prometheus (a Greek titan) stole fire from Mt. Olympus, hid it in a hollow stalk, and brought it to earth to help mankind.
In return, Zeus had Prometheus chained to a rock, and each day an eagle was sent to eat his liver, which regrew overnight. In this way, Zeus intended to torture Prometheus for eternity.
Eventually, Hercules came across Prometheus, shot the eagle with an arrow, and freed him.
Ayn Rand, in her masterpiece Atlas Shrugged, rewrites the story of Prometheus:
“After centuries of being torn by vultures in payment for having brought to men the fire of the gods, he broke his chains—and he withdrew his fire—until the day when men withdraw their vultures.”
In Rand's version, mankind both profited off of and punished Prometheus for giving them fire. To attain freedom, Prometheus takes his fire back, choosing to reject the torture by the same men who he helped.
Prometheus who changed his mind is he who recognizes that the system he operates in is broken—what he produces gets exploited by the people who consume it—but he decides not to play by the system's rules and revokes his output.
This blog was borne of a similar revelation, my own metaphoric rebellion against a different kind of broken system—corporate subjugation.
Here's to breaking the chains and taking back the fire.
