Kayla Pollio, Period 7, 1/14/23

Kayla Pollio, Period 7, 1/14/24
Modern Mythology 2024
Research Paper

Water is seen as a prerequisite for life. There is no life without water—water cleanses and preserves and constantly, steadily flows. It feeds Yggdrasil, the world-tree of Norse mythology; it is humanity’s driving force. And wherever there’s water, there’s a possibility of life.

There was once water on Mars. In December 2013, NASA’s Curiosity rover helped discover that nearly a third of the planet’s surface had been previously covered in a large freshwater lake: a hospitable environment for microbial life. Nowadays, the moisture has either frozen or evaporated (or, very rarely, remained liquid)—but the massive Martian ice caps are solid proof that there were once equally massive bodies of liquid water.

In Norse mythology, the wise god Mimir guards the well of knowledge, the water from which feeds Yggdrasil. Odin, his nephew, was determined to drink from this well, but awareness always comes with a sacrifice. Mimir said he would allow Odin a drink if he cut out his eye and placed it in the well. Odin had gone on a long and arduous journey for a chance to drink this water and would stop at nothing in the name of knowledge, so he did what he had to do, and soon “saw farther and more clearly with his one eye than he ever had with two” (Gaiman, 2017). But after drinking, he saw the end: he learned of Ragnarok, the violent apocalypse of Norse myth.

Along with the existence of Ragnarok came a valuable lesson to Odin: that ignorance is bliss. The terrible knowledge of Ragnarok consumes him—he tries to warn the other gods and change their fate, but there’s no delaying the end. Knowledge is like water: it nourishes us and changes shape as we discover more; it is eternal, it drives humans to do anything and everything. But if we’re not careful, we can drown in it. By choosing to drink from the well, Odin gains knowledge, but loses innocence; he gains farther sight, but loses perspective.

What would we do if we finally confirmed the existence of extraterrestrial life? Would we try to communicate with them? Assistant Principal Dr. Davis discussed this idea among other cosmology-related subjects with our class earlier this year. Our first thought would be, of course, to try to contact them—it’s the first time we’ve ever had this opportunity after hundreds of thousands of years of living alone in the universe! Humanity is obsessed with the possibility of an alien encounter: it’s the topic of countless pieces of media, and some people have even dedicated their whole lives to the pursuit of aliens. We have been working toward this opportunity for millenia; we have gone on a long and arduous journey and will stop at nothing in the name of knowledge. We are Odin, staring into the well of knowledge, wondering whether we should drink from it or not.

But, as Dr. Davis pointed out, looking at how the people of Earth’s different continents first interacted thousands of years ago, fear of the unfamiliar soon turns into hostility. What we envision as a peaceful and mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources has the potential to turn into something uglier, and there’s no going back once we make that sacrifice.

Discovering intelligent life in the universe will change humanity forever. But we must be careful not to lose an eye.

Works Cited: - “Extraterrestrial Liquid Water.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 2 Jan. 2024, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_liquid_water.
- Gaiman, Neil. “Mimir’s Head and Odin’s Eye.” Norse Mythology, W.W. Norton & Company, 2017, pp. 28.
- “NASA Mars Spacecraft Reveals a More Dynamic Red Planet.” NASA, NASA, 10 Dec. 2013, www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasa-mars-spacecraft-reveals-a-more-dynamic-red-planet#1.