Don’t fly too close to the sun?

The story of Icarus tells us that he and his father made human size birds wings to flee from the King whom he had apparently wronged. Icarus against his fathers advice and overcome with the power and wonder of flight flew as high as he could. This resulted in the wax that held the feathers together melting and he tumbled in to the sea and to his death.

We are reminded in the modern world not to “fly too close to the sun” and this is backed up with story’s of pop and movie stars that fly to close to the sun only to be burned and fall, often dying younger than they should.

The lesson then that we are told to take away from this is that we should not disobey our ruler, don’t aim too high, stay grounded and fly low. Essentially in the modern day this means don’t dare to be different and just be “normal”.

What is left out of the retelling of this story though is that Icarus’ father also told him not to fly too low as his feathers would get wet and he would be restricted in his ability to fly. The story is altered to ensure we stay low, we don’t reach for the sun and stand out among the many and essentially play it safe.

The options now open to us in today’s world is neither to be too risky or too dangerous. We live in a world where its now possible to fly higher than was ever dreamed and go beyond the sun. We owe it to ourselves to share our creativity with the world and reach beyond the sun in to the stars, unfortunately we have been rallied in to believing we should just stay low.