From geek to Greek: A possible journey for Google

The Washington Post recently described Google as a technology "Titan." I'm used to technology "giant."

Dipping into Greek mythology 101, one finds the titans to be a "primeval race of powerful deities," that ruled the earth for a very long time. Unchallenged in their supremacy and confident in the everlastingness of their reign, the Titans came in for the rudest shock of their lives when they lost a war of succession to the Olympians, a race of younger, more powerful and beautiful gods and goddesses.

Thus the naming of Google as a corporate titan is appropriate; it affirms the near-totemic status that google already enjoys as a mega-corporation.

However, if one were to follow Greek mythology to the tee, then the naming is also ominous, for unbeknownst to the namer, it connotes the possibility of Google's fall in the foreseeable future. Who would be the Olympians in the sphere of technology to dethrone Google?

[Certainly not Bing].

Were a fall to happen, then it would be tragic with a fourth dimension--for the deities of Google verse, that is.

I remember reading about the epic demise of the Titans in John Keats' lovely poem, Hyperion.

Hyperion is the only Titan that is yet to fall from power, as the Olympians are taking over. There is a scene in which Hyperion, the about-to-fall king meets the fallen and crushed Titan Saturn. Saturn's fall has taken a deep psychic toll on the once mighty overlord of the mythical universe. Saturn is physically unharmed, but the inside of him is so badly mauled that he can't even get up to go about the business of his daily chores.

Saturn is, in other words, depressed into inertness.

Hyperion tries to inject morale into Saturn, but to no avail.

The tragedy that accompanies a shift in paradigm, especially for those whose paradigm has been thrown out to make place for the new paradigm, echoes hauntingly through the poem.