Fire has come a long way since the day of the Promethean gift. I am reading in today's New York Times of a recent experiment to bend light waves around an object so that the object, a beach ball say, disappears -- at least to one's sight.
It was the Titan god, Prometheus, who started man on this quest to conquer his domain, when he, Prometheus, stole fire from the lightning bolt of Zeus and gave it as a gift to mankind. Zeus punished Prometheus because he feared it would make man like gods.
But equipped with fire, we began our first steps to conquer the world around us. Now thousands of years later Zeus' lightning has been harnessed, wired, transmitted, and even re-directed.
We can be not only warm in winter, but cool in summer, well-lit in the day and night, transported without the effort of walking, and entertained without the effort of thinking. All good things but things which give us a false sense of mastery over the natural order.
The grand and insignificant can easily humble us -- a hurricane cuts off the electricity in subfreezing weather, or a couple of birds fly into a jet engine -- either way, and the unforgiving natural laws conquer us. The separation between life and death is literally inches, seconds, degrees, or molecules away. The fragility of our existence is staggering.
The more we conquer this world the more we separate ourselves from its grim reality and the Olympians who can swallow us and leave no trace.
So I am conflicted about science and progress. The good I enjoy, the evil troubles me. And its effect on the mind and soul is "to be announced" many years from now.
Maybe Zeus was right.
