don’t fly too low Icarus
The classic Greek story of Icarus, as most of us know it, warns us about the perils of not listening to an authority. In this case, his dad Daedalus fashioned wings made out of feathers and wax to help his son escape from the island of Crete. As he took off, Daedalus cautioned Icarus not to fly too high as the heat from the sun would melt the wax, causing him to fall to his death. Failing to heed his father’s warning, Icarus soared too close to the sun, falling to his death in the sea below. It’s a classic story of hubris.
This is the version of the story most of us know, as it has been told this way for the last few hundred years. Yet, the original telling of the story, dating back some 2000 years spoke of Daedalus’ more important warning to Icarus, when he exclaimed “not to fly too low as the mist form the ocean will weight down your wings and you will surely perish.”
Why the retelling?
I think it was to create good workers and keep people in line. Very few people have the courage to change the world, much less go after what they want in life. The industrial revolution needed people to follow directions so that things could be made. With that came the safety of a paycheck and the security of a good life. There was little room for those who had the hubris to dream bigger. To seek out new frontiers. To challenge the status quo.
Unfortunately, the safety of following the formula of go to school, get a job, no longer guarantees any form of security in the modern world. Acquiring debt, to buy things we don’t need, to impress people we don’t like is what keeps the story going. We work to accumulate things, trading our health along the way, and at the end we realize the things we have are not as rewarding as the experiences of creating a life — failure and all — would have been.
Narrative is everything.
We’ve flown so low for so long, that our collective narrative isn’t able to tell the difference between what we are told is good for us and what we really want. We’re disconnected from telling our own story. We don’t need to fly so high that we are scorched by the sun but our acceptance of this status quo is making us invisible to the world we want.
The real meaning of Icarus, at least to me, is to heed the warnings of those we trust, but do not be afraid to leave the safety of your comfort zone to try new things, to leave the island of the status quo and search for a life you always wanted.
“The industrial age built the trap we’re mired in, but it didn’t build the trap all at once; that took centuries to perfect. And we were seduced. Seduced by the bait of decent pay and plenty of prizes. Seduced by the apparent security of the enclosure. And once the gate was shut, we were kept in by the threat of shame, the amplification of risk, and society’s reliance on more and shinier prizes. For us, though, the situation is even more poignant than it is for the fox. As the industrial age has faded away and been replaced by the connection economy—the wide-open reality of our new economic revolution—the fence has been dismantled. It’s gone. But most of us have no idea that we’re no longer fenced in. We’ve been so thoroughly brainwashed and intimidated and socialized that we stay huddled together, waiting for instructions, when we have the first, best, and once-in-a-lifetime chance to do something extraordinary”