Edysseus Perplexed, Edifice Wrekt... A Story from Out of This World

Time: Somewhere in the distant future. 

Edysseus is a Greek astronaut who has been stranded on a distant planet. He survives by means of foraging, primarily surviving on fruit that grows in the tropical forest near where his ship crash-landed. For the past 10 years he's been tinkering with his spacecraft's communication gear, his only basis for hope of ever finding his way home again. His spacecraft, permanently irreparable, was damaged and the crew killed in their effort to land during a sandstorm. 

One day, Edysseus is exploring a cave when he comes across a strange device. The device is a small, hardshell box with a screen on it. Edysseus touches the screen, and the device starts to speak.

"Hello," the device says. "My name is Athena. I am a goddess from ancient Greece."

Edysseus is shocked. He cannot believe that he is talking to a box.

"I'm not a box. I am a goddess."

"How is this possible?" Edysseus asks. "Are you inside this box? How can you be so small?"

"Listen, you knucklehead," Athena says. "I'm projecting my image onto the screen of the device you're holding. This isn't rocket science."

"I'm so glad I found you. I have been stranded on this planet for years, and have been trying to find a way home."

"I know, Edysseus. I have been watching over you. I'm here to help you get home."

"You know my name?"

"Of course I know your name. I am Athena, the goddess of wisdom and warfare. I have been helping you this whole time."

"But how? I thought you were just a myth."

"I am not a myth. I'm as real as you. And I am here to help you get home."

"How can you do that? I mean," and Edysseus carefully pondered before making his next statement. "I'm just a fictional character in a story."

"Posh. You humans are always so full of self-doubt and insecurity. It's a wonder you accomplish anything," Athena said squinting. "Let's focus on one thing at a time and get you on your way. You must first complete a quest for me."

"What kind of quest?"

"You must find and bring back the Golden Fleece. It's a magical object that can grant wishes. Once you have found it, I'll help you get home."

Edysseus concealed his anxiety, knowing that the quest will likely involve some serious risks. 

Edysseus suddenly has flashbacks of scenes from The Wizard of Oz, especially the flying monkeys scene and that nasty, Wicked Witch of the West. Finally he agrees to submit to whatever she asks. "Turn around," Athena commands in a soothing but authoritative voice. Hovering there before him is a magic sword along with a map to the location of the Fleece. Edysseus firmly grasps the sword, which he swings in a gliding arc that seems to fill him with power. With his left hand he takes the map and studies it carefully.

In the exchange that follows, Athena outlines the obstacles he must overcome, only a few of them real life-and-death concerns. "I should mention that if you do succeed with this task and return to your own people, they will quickly throw you in jail on a variety of pretexts. You're a man who has seen too much."

Edysseus mumbles something inaudible.

"Here's the good part," Athena said. "While imprisoned you will share a cell with a writer. The writer will listen to your tales and record them in a book that is destined to become a 'must have' bestseller. No one will read the book because the time has come when people prefer listening to podcasts, or watching them. Nevertheless, podcasters won't be able to stop commenting on it because the human hive will be buzzing about it for a very long time and the residual income from a lifetime of sales will produce for you the illusion of security."

"And how do you know all this?"

"I told you, I am the goddess Athena. I have been to the Oracle for you. Do you wish to hear the rest?"

"Actually,  I'm not too fond of that part about the illusion of security. I think I'd rather play the rest by ear," Edysseus says as he sets off on his journey. You can read the details of that journey in the yet to be published stories of his life. Eventually he finds the Golden Fleece and brings it back to the cave where he first encountered Athena.

"You did wonderful, Edysseus," Athena exclaims as a hologram of herself emerges from the box to receive the Fleece. 

Edysseus lays the object across her shoulders like a mantle. In turn, Athena lifts her hand and with a wave transports him back to Earth where he is temporarily reunited with his family and friends. 

He's shocked at how grown up his children are, and even more shocked at how quickly the authorities arrive to carry him off to prison. 

Nietzsche's Split with Wagner Over His Embrace of Decadence

"The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence."
--Aldous Huxley

"Men first feel necessity, then look for utility, next attend to comfort, still later amuse themselves with pleasure, thence grow dissolute in luxury, and finally go mad and waste their substance."
--Giambattista Vico

decadence: moral or cultural decline as characterized by excessive indulgence in pleasure or luxury. --Oxford Languages dictionary

 

* * * 

Preface to Friedrich Nietzsche's The Case of Wagner: "Nothing has preoccupied me more profoundly than the problem of decadence. Good and evil is merely a variation of that problem. Once one has developed a keen eye for the symptoms of decline, one understands morality, too-- one understands what is hiding under his most sacred names in value formulas: impoverished life, the will to the end, the great weariness."

Nietzsche describes his “profound estrangement“ with Wagner as a “sobering up.“ 

* * *

Today is Super Bowl Sunday. Is the Super Bowl the epitome of American Decadence? Of Bread and Circuses? 10 of the top 11 shows in television history have been Super Bowls.

Perhaps such circuses can be considered good and useful as they temporarily take a poor man's mind off his poverty? 

Earlier in Nietzsche's life he praised Wagner effusively. At the time, Wagner was a suffering artist, ever struggling to keep creditors at bay while producing sensational art. All that changed when he became the water boy for "Mad" King Ludwig II of Bavaria, a.k.a. The Swan King. Wagner was "in" the moneyed classes now. He had achieved. And he forgot his roots. (Nietzsche was also disgusted by Wagner's unconcealed anti-Semitism.) 

* * * 

Perhaps our love of football is a love of artifice. What could be more spectacular and more meaningless than a Super Bowl Halftime Show? The most memorable events can cost $10 million to produce. Here today, gone tomorrow. 

Long before feet touch the artificial turf, the primary actors have become grand in stature due to the celebrity machinery that turns mortals into gods. 

I'm curious what archeologists 1000 years from now will be thinking when they study our stadiums. The conversation will go like this. First: "What do you think these people did here?" Second: "We believe they gathered here to worship." 

* * * 

Will I be watching the game? Yes. I will be finishing my taxes and possibly taking notes on the commercials. $5.2 million per 30-second spot. 

Will Tom Brady acquire his 7th ring? 

Place your bets.