Making Peace with the Responsibility of Choice

Damocles.icu

All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us

Goal

Name

The myth of Damocles was chosen to represent the risks and responsibilities that we have today towards the future. As technology progresses at an exponential rate we are faced with less time to make decisions with greater compouding impact than ever before.

Damocles sat on the throne of Dionysis and saw above his head a sword hung from the pommel by a single hair from a horse’s tail to symbolize the dangers of one who is burdened with the power and responsibility of choice. Damocles was filled with dread and begged to return to his old life.

Today it seems like more and more of us are placed upon the throne of Dionysis and asked to burden the responsibility of choice. We can all see the sword of Damocles, not all of us made the choice to be beneath it.

The myth of Damocles does not address what it means to have to be seated upon the throne. We cannot return to our lives and pretend as though making no choice at all is not a choice in and of itself.

Hope

If we are made to choose, then let us choose wisely. Damocles.icu was designed to be a place for these meditations on choice, ethics, the future, and our role within it.

It is not a place for fear or panic, but of careful and thoughtful contemplation, and of peace with the responsibility of choice.

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