Dear Reader,

I am confident that you are acquainted with the story of Icarus, the young man who flew too close to the sun with wings crafted from feathers and wax, going against his father’s warnings. The result was tragic: the wax melted, the wings failed, and Icarus plunged to death.

To my surprise, I just discovered that I had already cited Icarus in the blog post “Far Beyond The Sun.”

You might consider this myth as a straightforward cautionary tale: don’t ignore wise counsel, don’t aim too high, listen to your father, or else face dire consequences. It’s a warning against hubris, a moral lesson for those who try to reach for things that lie beyond their grasp.

Allow me to offer a fresh perspective on this age-old tale: is Icarus’s death possibly not his tragedy but his fortune?

Icarus saw the sun like no one had seen it before, that unreachable, brilliant source of light, and he just had to go for it. He was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. He wasn’t going to stop. He couldn’t. For him, flying that close to the sun, even for a fleeting moment, was worth the fall.

“If we burn our wings
Flying too close to the sun
If the moment of glory
Is over before it’s begun
If the dream is won
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price
But we will not count the cost”

Bravado – RUSH

Imagine if he hadn’t flown further. Imagine if he had listened to his father, Daedalus, safely flying at a middle altitude, not too close to the sun to melt his wings, nor too close to the sea so that humidity would weigh them down. He might have lived a long life, never again experiencing anything as breathtaking, thrilling or unique as that single sunward flight. My point is this: what if, perhaps, the idea of living knowing that the opportunity to elevate himself so close to something so spectacular – and in turn, to be himself elevated by the experience – was a fate worse than the deadly fall itself?

Consider astronauts. Some of them have reached orbit, and some have touched the moon. What do you do after that? How can life on Earth compare? After returning to Earth, astronauts may struggle with reintegration into civilian life. The intense experiences of space travel can lead to a sense of emptiness or loss once the mission ends. This phenomenon has been noted in several astronauts; some experienced severe depression and alcoholism. The abrupt transition from a highly structured and purpose-driven environment to a layman’s life and the sudden disappearance of an exceedingly high objective can aggravate feelings of isolation and purposelessness. They’ve done something so monumental and groundbreaking that returning to a life removed from a higher purpose, a higher object, must have felt impossible. What could ever top walking on the moon? (For a deeper analysis of the phenomenon, you can look at this long article by NASA).

This post isn’t just about astronauts and other precursory mythical flyers. It is about anyone who, after having been near something so high and elevating, incurs the risk of living a dull, never entirely satisfactory, and regretful life. It underscores the importance of finding meaning in our pursuits, even if they lead us to extraordinary heights and troublesome aftermaths.

Olympic athletes, who reach the pinnacle of human performance, often grapple with this same issue. They’ve won gold medals, broken records, and become legends, but once that moment passes, what’s left? There are only so many Olympic Games and so many chances to prove yourself. After the peak performance, there’s often nowhere to go but down. The body ages, events don’t occur frequently, and training techniques evolve. In the blink of an eye, they find themselves staring at their gold medals, knowing they’ll never stand on that podium again.

As a last anecdotal example, let me cite the case of the research partnership between Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky (whose work I have already mentioned in the blog in this post). The two were a formidable team; their groundbreaking approach to human biases and prospect theory led to a new field of research – behavioural economics – and Kahneman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2002.

After Tversky’s death in 1996, Kahneman expressed that he felt a “great void” in both his personal and professional life. He described Tversky as not only a brilliant collaborator but also as a close friend whose absence left a significant impact on him. Kahneman noted that their collaboration was characterized by a unique synergy where they complemented each other’s strengths and weaknesses, leading to groundbreaking insights into decision-making and behavioural economics. The separation from Tversky meant losing not just a colleague but also someone who challenged and inspired him intellectually. Kahneman’s reflections on their partnership highlight the emotional and cognitive toll of such a loss, emphasizing the importance of such a highly inspiring companion, someone of such high intellect and valour that he cannot be replaced.

“And if love remains
Though everything is lost
We will pay the price
But we will not count the cost”

Ibid.

One might be led to state that dying was, in a sense, Icarus’ good fortune. He never had to live knowing he would never again fly so close to something beautiful, immense, and inspiring. He never had to wake up every day looking back on that moment, profession, or person, knowing he could never experience it again. The real tragedy could have been surviving and spending the rest of his life weighed down by that knowledge – the day he touched the sun and knew it would never return.

What are we supposed to do then? Stop striving for excellence and live below our capabilities, or strive for excellence, knowing the drawbacks might last a lifetime?

Someone once told me the definition of Hell: The last day you have on Earth, the person you became will meet the person you could have become.

Areté – Brian Johnson and Phil Stutz

I am proposing an antidote to this paradox. I am not advocating to shy away from lofty endeavours. Quite the contrary! My suggestion for you, my Reader, is to be aware of what could happen and build a strong meaning around it. Try to give meaning to what happened or to what will happen as a result of your efforts, and you will become unfeasible; you will, in some sense, lose yourself in the process. Every piece of the puzzle will fall into its place as you knew it all along the journey.

Also, be ready to change course when one stream of your life has run dry. Life’s too short to refrain from giving our best shot at it and too long not to be ready to experience many possibilities.

Bertrand Russel has something unique to say on the matter:

Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. An individual human existence should be like a river — small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.

Portraits From Memory and Other Essays – Bertrand Russel

Until next time, strive for excellence and meaning.

“The meaning of life is to give life meaning”

Viktor Frankl