On the day after you or your female partner has a baby, you receive a visit from Pallas Athena, Sovran of Olympus*. Mighty Pallas establishes her bona fides by the usual methods**. Before you ask she says that she doesn’t need or desire any offerings from you; there’s no artifact on Earth she can’t get made better by Hephaestus, and if you had something that rightfully belonged to her she’d just take it anyway. Nor does she care one way or the other whether you worship her; she’s too cool for temples herself, and worship is bad for mortals.
No, Athena has come to inform you that you have a choice to make about the fate of your newborn. Your son or daughter, as it turns out, has hit the genetic lottery, likely to be far smarter, lovelier, and more physically able than average. But that isn’t all that is required for success; the attributes of courage, ambition, will, and compassion are largely lacking.
Athena can give your baby a bit of divine grace to make up for the lacking assets, and she will if you agree. The minimum amount of grace she can bestow will result in your baby growing to be the greatest hero of their generation. That doesn’t necessarily mean great WARRIOR. Your baby might instead be a brilliant physician or scientist, perhaps the leader of a new social movement, maybe a great artist; they’ll choose the path. Whatever they opt for, they’ll excel at it–but with a price. Just as their life will reach heights of glory few others can aspire to, they will also be plunged into terrible depths no one will envy. Their enemies will be as numerous as their friends, and it’s unlikely they’ll live past the age of 50; in fact, most people given such a grace die before 40. When your baby dies, a pro football stadium will not suffice to contain you and the other mourners, and for hundreds of years afterwards, their example will inspire others.
If you refuse Athena’s gift of grace, your child will live a mediocre one, their full potential never realized. Everything will be easy for them, yes–but they’ll never care enough to accomplish much. The combination of great intelligence and great timidity will combine to make the child so cautious they live till the age of 100 without ever being at all remarkable or, for that matter, truly happy. Few will mourn their eventual death, and ten years afterwards no one will remember them.
Again, Athena is not interested in you or your child becoming her worshiper or champion. But while she hates to see potential squandered, she also values free will; and as this gift of grace must be granted before the child’s third day of life, you must decide in the next few hours.
What’s your choice, and why? Why or why not?
- I don’t wanna hear any crap from you heretical Zeus-worshippers. And don’t get me started about that wanker Apollo.
** Let’s say she magically teleports Jenny McCarthy to her side, convinces her that the anti-vax movement is full of shit using only sweet reason, and then, once Jenny has wept and apologizes, feeds her to a minotaur conjured up especially for the occasion.