We got Icarus wrong.
It's not about hubris.
The myth of Icarus is about father and son escaping prison.
The father, Daedalus, builds wings out of beeswax for him and his son, Icarus. They soared across the skies like birds. Far from the prison, Icarus felt proud and flew closer to the sun, but the sunlight melted the beeswax. Icarus plummeted to the dark sea below.
The myth warns us of 2 things:
We should temper our ambition
Quell our hubris to avoid disaster.
I agree with the second part.
Since the beginning of time, humans have looked at birds and yearned to fly. Plenty believed they could if only they used the right machines, design, and money than others. But they were burned.
John Damian tried feathered wings, but he crashed and broke his leg.
Félix du Temple used steam to power his plane, but he crashed and died.
Alexander Mozhaysky also used a steam-powered plane but added a ramp. He flew for a short distance and crashed.
Even Leonardo Da Vinci sketched flying machines, but these were elegant in design, not in practicality.
No one believed humans could fly due to our technological capacity. In 1903, the New York Times declared that it might take "one million to ten million years" to develop a flying machine.
We thought the myth told us Icarus flew too close to the sun because he believed himself closer to the Gods and impenetrable to danger. hubris and ambition weighed him down, grounding his wings.
But that's not accurate.
Icarus didn’t fall because of hubris but because he had the wrong wings for the journey.
He needed better wings to fly closer to the sun.
That’s what we needed too, and in 1903, the Wright Brothers took flight with better wings and gave us the ability to fly.
The lesson from Icarus isn't to temper our ambitions and stay low to the ground.
It's to aim high with better wings.
If you aim high, make sure you build your wings well or else you will burn.
Ambition without preparation isn’t courage; it’s hubris.
You’re asking to be burned.
If we aim for where never a lark, or even an eagle flew, we must have better wings.
Better preparation to reach the high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out our hand, and touch the face of God.
Shoutout to
for giving a second set of eyes.