According to Greek mythology there is a Titan, a force of great strength and intellect, who has the ability to consider what will be necessary or may happen in the future. Quite appropriately he is called Prometheus meaning Forethought.
Prometheus steals 'fire' from the Gods and gives it to mankind. But what he stole is the fire that gives that powerful sense of determination and ambition. He stole what is nowadays called the fire in your belly.
Yet for the power and zeal that that fire gives a terrible price is to be paid that is well symbolised in the image of Prometheus stretched out in agony on that Caucasian rock having his liver eaten away every day by an insatiable eagle. It is an unremitting discontent that is eating Prometheus. The determined drive to do or achieve something in someone who has the ability to think ahead, i.e. to imagine that things could be different from what they are now inevitably results in Discontent.
To end the daily torment Prometheus must meet two conditions. The first is that an immortal must volunteer to die for him and the second that a mortal must kill the eagle and unchain him. Eventually, it is Chiron the Centuar, a learned horse-expert and teacher, who agrees to die for him and Heracles who kills the eagle and unbinds him.
The symbolic meaning of these two conditions is a bit of a mystery. But what is clear is that any man in possession of Forethought as well as that Fire in his or her belly has quite a way to go before those feelings of Discontent will subside.
For now, the ability to imagine that things could be different from what they are, that they could be more beautiful, more practical, more harmonious, comes at a price. A price that is collected by the Insatiable Eagle whose name is Discontent.
