Lately, it feels like progress is outpacing our ability to keep up with it.
Since 2020, it feels like we've been hit with wave after wave of change. Large language models and generative tools are just one piece of it. By the time I start to wrap my head around one shift, another is already here. It leaves me trying to make sense of what just happened, even as the next thing is already reshaping the landscape.
When we started Feeding Curiosity, I remember feeling genuinely optimistic. It wasn't because I thought the problems ahead would be simple. It was more that I believed we could figure things out as we went. We could learn, adapt, and maybe even stumble onto better ways of doing things.
At some point, we had to pause and ask ourselves where we were actually headed. I never felt certain enough to claim I knew exactly what that direction should look like.
But even with that optimism, I keep circling back to the same question: what are we really aiming for?
It's tempting to think about the future in terms of what we can build, automate, or how far we can push the limits. I find those questions fascinating. But I can't shake the feeling that something gets left out. Just because we can do something doesn't mean we should, or that it will actually help us become the people we want to be.
That's part of the reason Nolan's take on The Odyssey has stuck with me. Beyond the arguments about the adaptation itself, it's remarkable that we're coming back to this story at all.
Now it's 2026, and we're still trying to make sense of technologies that would have seemed impossible not that long ago. Yet, somehow, an old story still manages to hold our attention.
Why?
What does it say about us that we're still puzzling over this hero, his journey, and what his story might reveal about who we are?
What We Recognize
I don't think we go back to old stories simply because we know them. Sometimes they allow us to see something about our own lives more clearly.
In Book 5 of the Odyssey, Calypso offers Odysseus the chance to stay with her and become immortal. He knows that going back to Ithaca will be a life of suffering. He knows that Penelope is a mortal woman. Yet he tells her:
“But even so I wish and long day by day to reach my home, and to see the day of my return.”
What strikes me is how little explanation that kind of yearning really needs. The situation is mythic, but the feeling is instantly familiar. He wants a specific life, with specific people, in a specific place.
I don't think this is an argument against discovery or pushing beyond our limits. It just complicates the idea that a better life always means having fewer constraints.
What actually makes an offer worth taking? What would we be willing to give up to become something more? And what might we only realize, too late, that we never wanted to leave behind?
We can ask those same questions about technology, even though Homer obviously wasn't thinking about our machines. The real connection is in what matters to us, not the tech itself.
That sense of recognition is where the gap between the ancient world and ours starts to close. I don't need to believe we're identical to the first listeners. I just need to spot a choice I recognize and admit I still don't know what I would have done in their place.
A Hero Who Doesn’t Stay Still
And then there's the hero himself.
We're drawn to people whose achievements are tangled up with their flaws. Ambition, courage, and sheer willpower are easy to admire, but I know those same traits can turn into a curse. Persistence can become stubbornness. Confidence can tip into arrogance. The drive to do something extraordinary can make everyday life feel almost meaningless.
That makes heroism a lot harder to define than just being someone we look up to.
Tennyson's "Ulysses" gives that sense of uncertainty a different form. The hero is restless at home, looking towards another voyage. Towards the end, he says:
“Tho’ much is taken, much abides”
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses.”
The poem goes on to describe people diminished by time but still determined “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
There's something compelling about that refusal to give up. I get the appeal of believing that age, loss, or disappointment don't have to be the end of our drive to act.
But when you set that against the longing for home at the center of The Odyssey, it brings up another question. When is setting out again an act of courage, and when is it just an inability to face what you already have?
I don't think that tension makes the hero any less compelling. If anything, it makes him more interesting.
We can want to belong and still want to leave. We can crave the security of home and still feel the pull of what's out there. We can respect someone's determination and still wonder where that drive will actually lead.
Maybe that's why we keep coming back to these stories. We haven't really settled what heroism means, and our own experiences keep shifting how we see the same character.
Living Inside History
It's always easier to spot patterns in the past than to recognize them in the present.
Looking back, it's simple to line up events, pick out the turning points, and trace how things turned out. Living through change is a different story. We don't know which developments will actually matter, which promises will stick, or what we'll wish we'd paid more attention to.
I think most of us are feeling that uncertainty right now.
We're excited about what's possible, uneasy about what we might lose, and not always sure how to weigh the trade-offs. Even when we're trying to pay attention, it can feel like we're just reacting to a future that's already unfolding somewhere else.
Going back to an old story doesn't make that feeling go away. It just changes the scale we're looking at.
The present is still ours, but it's not the only lens through which we can view a human life. Other stories speak to ambition, loss, duty, and belonging. We can argue with them, find their assumptions strange or even off-putting. Sometimes we discover that what we thought doesn't make our problems any less real. It just gives us more ways to talk about them, beyond whatever is the latest thing.
It also pushes us to rethink how we approach the past. We don't have to make it perfect to find value in it. If we write it off before trying to understand it, we might miss a chance to learn something about ourselves and where we came from.
The Future That May Be
T. S. Eliot wrote:
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.”—T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding,” from Four Quartets.
I keep coming back to the idea that returning can actually be a way of discovering something new.
A story can be old without being used up. We bring our own experiences to it, notice new details, make different choices, and sometimes get hung up on things we used to overlook. It's less about the world changing and more about how we read the story each time.
That's really what I hoped Feeding Curiosity would be from the start.
I wanted a place to explore what's new and where it might take us. I still do. Lately, though, I've found myself more interested in how those possibilities connect to what we've inherited—the stories, the questions, and the commitments that might help us figure out what comes next.
My optimism is still there. It's just not as automatic as it used to be.
I still believe we can take on the hard problems and build lives that matter. But just having the ability to do something isn't the same as knowing how to use it well. That takes judgment, and judgment takes more than just keeping up.
It takes time to really look at what we admire. It takes a willingness to question both what excites us and what scares us. Sometimes it means going back to something familiar and admitting we didn't get it as well as we thought.
Maybe that's why The Odyssey still matters to me in 2026. Even with everything that feels new and unprecedented, I keep seeing someone trying to find his way home. And I'm still not done thinking about what that really means.
We don't know how our piece of history will look from the other side. We have to make our choices before we can ever know what all the consequences will be.
For now, I just want to stay curious about what's coming next, without losing sight of what came before. The future will ask us to discover new things, but it will also ask what we're willing to carry forward.
