Today is a day of leisure for Greeks — but also a day for reflection, remembrance, and thoughts that reach back into the past.
And, prompted by the present moment and by the worldwide response to Christopher Nolan’s cinematic adaptation of Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, we invited our friend and collaborator, Diotima, to take on the role of a modern Homer and compose for us a concise “New Odyssey.”
A voyage. A journey of a future Odysseus beyond the boundaries of Earth — across other planets, into distant and unknown worlds of the Universe.
A new wandering through the unknown, where the ancient Homeric journey meets the future of humanity, and where the question is no longer simply where we are going, but what we may discover about ourselves when we finally meet the Other.
And so, the old Odyssey opens its sails once more.
Only this time, the sea is the Universe.
But this Odysseus will not journey in order to return to Ithaca.
He will journey because the old Ithaca no longer exists — or because humanity itself has crossed the boundaries of Earth.
His spacecraft will become his new raft, the planets his new cities, and the unknown beings he encounters the new peoples whose worlds he will enter.
And at the heart of his journey, almost as a sacred compass, he will carry Homer’s ancient words:
“πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω.”
He saw the cities of many peoples, and came to know their minds.
And then, as if across the vastness of time, the old Homer will hand his stylus to the new.
The ancient poet will become the invisible guide of a new voyage, leading us through unfamiliar cities and distant worlds, where other forms of life may reveal a different wisdom — or a different folly.
For there is no reason to believe that life elsewhere must resemble the visitor who comes from Earth.
The beings our new Odysseus encounters may have no human shape, no human language, perhaps not even a human conception of intelligence, civilization or existence.
And that is precisely where the new Odyssey begins.
Not with the discovery of creatures who resemble us,
but with the discovery of others who do not.
For only then will the traveller be forced to ask the oldest and most difficult question of all:
What does it truly mean to be human?
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THE NEW ODYSSEY
Odysseus Beyond Earth
“He saw the worlds of many beings, and came to know their minds.”
Once, a man left Ithaca to discover the world.
Thousands of years later, another Odysseus left Earth.
There were no seas before him, no winds, no islands of the Aegean. Only the vast darkness of the Universe. His spacecraft was his new raft, and the planets he encountered were the unknown cities of a new world.
He departed with a single question:
Is there life out there?
And the Universe answered.
There were worlds where life had overcome violence. Beings who knew no war because they had once understood that no victor truly inherits his victory.
On another planet he encountered a civilization that had surrendered everything to power. They had become immensely powerful. They had conquered their planet, conquered knowledge, even conquered time.
But in the end, there was no one left to rule.
And on a third world he saw something that moved him more deeply.
The beings there did not consider themselves masters of nature.
They did not say, “Nature belongs to us.”
They said:
“We belong to nature.”
Every planet was a mirror.
Every civilization was a possible future of Earth.
And the farther Odysseus travelled into the Universe, the more clearly he understood that he was not travelling merely to discover others.
He was travelling to discover himself.
Then he understood the deeper meaning of the ancient Homeric verse:
“πολλῶν δ’ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω”
He saw the cities of many people and came to know their minds.
Only now, the “people” were other beings, and the “cities” were other worlds.
He saw the worlds of many beings, and came to know their minds.
At last, after a journey that had lasted longer than a human lifetime, he reached the final planet.
There were no cities there.
No empires.
No monuments.
Only one creature was waiting for him.
It did not ask where he came from. It did not ask about the power, technology or achievements of human civilization.
It simply looked at him and asked:
“What did you learn about the human?”
Odysseus remained silent.
For the first time during his journey, he had no answer.
He had seen civilizations that understood what humanity still ignored. He had seen worlds destroyed because they believed themselves superior to life. He had seen others survive because they had learned to coexist.
And then he understood.
The greatest unknown in the Universe was not a distant planet.
It was the human being.
He returned to Earth.
Not as a conqueror of Space.
Not as a hero who had defeated the unknown.
But as a man who had finally understood how small his world was — and how great his responsibility.
And when he saw Earth again from afar, he no longer saw a place that belonged to him.
He saw a small, fragile planet travelling alone through the darkness.
Perhaps this is the true New Odyssey.
Not humanity’s journey to conquer the Universe.
But humanity’s journey to become worthy of inhabiting a planet.
For one day we may reach the edges of the Universe.
We may discover other worlds.
We may encounter other forms of life and come to know their minds.
But if we do not first learn to live peacefully on our own small Earth, we will remain the most unknown inhabitants of the Universe.
And perhaps, then, Odysseus’s greatest homecoming will not be to Ithaca.