The Damn Cat

Pandora's box is really just Greek for "curiosity killed the cat". Zeus, the king of the gods, made this girl out of clay and gave her to a guy to be his bride. As a wedding gift he gave them a box that was locked. Then, telling them to never open it, Zeus handed the husband the key. (Zeus was really just trying to screw this guy over for revenge). The husband guessed it was a trick and hid the key. Pandora though, man she wanted to know. She stole the key while her husband was sleeping. When she opened the box, all these evil things flew out so she slammed it shut. Crying, she ran to her husband apologizing. She opened it to show him the empty box and found Hope inside. So according to the Greeks, that's why we have Envy, Crime, Hate, Disease, and Hope in this world. (And how that stupid curious cat was killed).

The connotation that Western society gets from 'Pandora' shows up everywhere. Take Pandora online music for example, you never know what you'll get and you only get so many chances to chance the random outcome. Of course, the story is also about the seemingly ever present evils in this world. To talk about evils I'd like to squelch, I'd need more time and space. After all, who truly wants evil in this world. Instead I just want to mention the concept of necessary evil. In the story of Pandora, it is somewhat addressed. The world would never had encountered Hope if Pandora had not released the other Evils from the box. Like we're told in Macro, everything has a cost - nothing is free (opportunity costs, etc) - and so we must evaluate the world we live in today through that point of view. We can't eliminate evil and just be left with goodness - the world just doesn't work like that. But, like Pandora, we need to sometimes rein ourselves in to prevent widespread harm.