Welcome to Mimir's Well. What is it about?

This newsletter arose from necessity. We currently live in a world where information is often distorted, facts are mostly hard to come by, and news are presented to the public through the lens of a particular political ideology (depending on which newspaper you’re reading or cable network you’re watching). Since journalism has gone full on digital, the headline is more important than the actual article, because drama sells more than boring but factual content. We can’t really trust anyone or anything to be reliable, so what can we do about it? The only thing left for people like me and you is to do a lot of research, double check any statement made by mainstream media outlets, and draw our own conclusions. However, that’s a lot of work: that’s where I hope Mimir’s Well will come into play. To give you some context, bear with me as we temporarily navigate through the old Viking world.

The greatest difference between monotheistic and polytheistic theologies is that, in the former, God is generally all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving. Polytheistic gods are none of these things: like any human, they are limited by their particularity. For Odin, the ruler of the Aesir tribe of deities in the Norse mythology, limitation is something to be overcome by any means necessary. His actions are carried out within the context of a relentless and ruthless quest for more wisdom, more knowledge, and more power. As some of you may know from the Marvel movies, Odin is one-eyed: but how did that come to pass? He once ventured to the Well of Urd amongst the roots of the world-tree Yggdrasil. There dwelt Mimir, a being whose knowledge of all things was unparalleled. He achieved this status by drinking from the well, whose waters imparted this cosmic knowledge. When Odin arrived, he asked Mimir for a drink from the well, but the guardian refused unless the seeker offered an eye in return. Odin gouged out one of his eyes and dropped it into the well: Mimir dipped his horn and offered the now-one-eyed god a drink. The message of this tale is that, for those who share Odin’s values, no sacrifice is too great for wisdom. Also, in all ages the eye has been a poetic symbol for perception in general. Odin’s pledge of an eye symbolizes trading a profane, everyday mode of perception, beleaguered with countless petty troubles, for a sacred mode of perception informed by divine, ancestral wisdom.

While I don’t claim to hold any kind of divine wisdom (far from it), and this is just a tale from an old and almost forgotten religion, we can draw some parallels with the modern world. I sincerely believe that without doing a not so small amount of research into the problems affecting our society, or without fact-checking many “truths” presented without evidence to the public, anyone would have a shallow perception of reality (almost without fault). The aim of this newsletter is to do most of the work for you, hopefully without literally gouging out one of my eyes in the process. I will try to give you a weekly dose of the Mead of Poetry by presenting opposing views, listing all of the facts, and analyzing the data (since numbers never lie).

What kind of topics to expect from Mimir’s Well? Anything affecting in a major way the society we live in: politics (from the US elections to Brexit), economics and finance (from the changing trends in the markets to the new world of cryptocurrencies), climate change (from its effects to its future solutions), the gender gap (from the clear and ongoing oppression of the patriarchy to some controversial aspects of modern day feminism), racial inequalities (from the civil rights movement to today’s anti-racism), and the so-called culture wars. Again, I don’t claim to hold all the answers: I’ll do my best to offer a clear picture of the hottest topic of the week. I want Mimir’s Well to be a place where everybody can come and acquire new knowledge to be reasoned upon: only in the collectivity of different points of view can we find truth.