What does the act of conquering the unknown imply for us?

The Greeks had a fairly straightforward story about a Man, Actaeon. Faced with a quiet dissatisfaction with life, Actaeon began to set out into the forest. Along with him he took his pack of dogs.

As Actaeon went deeper and deeper into the forest, he heard a soft lilting sound coming from nearby. He could not precisely place what this sound was. And so he made his way to the source of this sounds. He slowly came toward the source of the sound, a strange faery song from behind a waterfall and hidden behind this water fall, he could just make out the outlines of some human-like figure. He gently and tenderly stepped toward the sound and putting his foot into the pool sent a single ripple toward the source of the singing. Immediately the singing stopped. The water itself seemed to part and from behind the curtain of water emerged the Lady Artemis and her nymphs.

Actaeon himself was shaken. He did not know what to do and with a sudden turn, he turned around and fled the way he came. But the Goddess would have none of this. She chased him down and set a spell upon him. Actaeon was now in a deep sense of worry and dread and through his flee began to shout aloud for help. But even as he raised his voice, he found that he could no longer scream in a human voice. But now a deep bellow emerged instead. Actaeon had become a stag. Somewhere nearby, his pack of hounds sniffed him out and began chasing him down till they ripped Actaeon to shreds.

The story is fairly simple with a grave and serious warning. Do not venture out into paths unknown if you do not know what lies ahead. The story of the hero is revered across all cultures; the Greeks however, were brave enough to mention the pitfalls of such follies.

It is the singular act of man coming to face with God itself. What happens after such an encounter? What does it mean to come across God?

Clearly it was wrong of Actaeon to run away from God, herself. But it is not that simple. See, Adam and Eve too, came across God. They, instead had eaten from the fruit of the tree that contained the knowledge of Good and Evil; they also spoke to a snake. Now whether it was just the fruit (the natural) or the talking snake (the realm of reality) that affected their true enlightenment is for ourselves to decide. Actaeon on the other hand had no such a priori knowledge about what to do if one should come across God. And so he did what we are programmed to do in the face of grave danger, he did what lizards are primed to do from the second they are born; he avoided a predator.

Now what does this mean about God? Many men in the face of God have chosen to flee, Elijah and Jonah being among them, not everyone is blessed with the staunchness of Job. To encounter the unknown means to move out of the boundaries of what you know and into the realm of what you estimate to know. You will not always conquer this unknown. Sometimes it will knock you down and there will be little to nothing that you can do to overcome this blow. You will be changed, just as Actaeon was, you will be changed in the face of God, you will be forced to become diminished, you will be changed to the status of an animal.

And you will be devoured, make no mistake about that. As an animal, you are idiotically vulnerable to things that you never thought you could be vulnerable to. When you have a dog, you choose to feed your dog; and occasionally, people feed and take care of their animals better than they are able to take care of themselves. But this is part of the inter-species pact we have. Man takes care of his canine or feline counterparts. What happens when you are the canine or feline yourself? Who takes care of you? And that could be your destruction. Sometimes, you are not the predator, you are just the prey. There is a certain danger to trying to conquer the unknown that you are ill-equipped to handle. Christopher McCandles was one such man. He strode bravely into the wilderness of Alaska only to succumb to a plant that he mis-identified. Such mistakes cost you in the wild.

Does this mean that you should not leave your land, your home, your space of bounded plenty? It most certainly does not. You should bravely go out to conquer the unknown. Maybe if you conquer it, they will turn you into a demigod; and if you don’t you will always be a martyr.