Portmantle

Hi there. It’s been a while. I’m still always writing, but tbh, I forgot I started this blog. But I have some things that I think need to be said.

I wanted to write a poem to convey this in a pretty way. I think I will eventually, but right now I just need to be honest and straightforward and just say exactly what I’m thinking. This isn’t gonna be the most organized, well-edited thing I’ve ever written lol. I’ll organize my thoughts another day and revisit this.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the story of Icarus and how we collectively decided that the lesson to be learned from the story is that Icarus fell and died because of his own hubris and arrogance and recklessness. But there’s actually some different lessons that I think are more important and relevant.

The first is that the survivor crafts the story. I know this is mythology, but in the story, Daedalus is the one who survives. He’s usually seen as the wise old man who told Icarus not to fly too high or too low. He lost his son, and I’m sure that the grief was overwhelming, but I think he took the easy way out in blaming Icarus for not listening to his advice. It’s easier than feeling guilty for his own decisions and inventions. And that’s the way that everyone has interpreted the story since then.

But I don’t think Icarus is at fault for flying too close to the sun. I don’t think he was being arrogant or reckless. I think he was just a boy who was trapped in a prison, and he felt freedom for the first time, and he was happy to be flying.

The second lesson is that the people in power create the problems, the crafty and intelligent people are used/weaponized, then the younger generation is ultimately the one that pays the price. We say that Icarus flew too close to the sun. No one mentions how it was King Minos’s blatant defiance that made Poseidon create the Minotaur. No one mentions that King Minos wanted to keep the Minotaur alive just for the sake of his own bloody power trip. No one ever mentions that Daedalus is the one who built the labyrinth. No one ever mentions that King Minos put Daedalus and Icarus in prison. No one ever mentions that Daedalus is the one who created the wings. King Minos and Daedalus may have faced consequences in their own right, but the consequences pile up more on the innocent.

It reminds me a lot of modern inventions and technology. The CEOs start companies and gain control over the economy, the intelligent people are hired to complete tasks. Then the inventions are not only placed in the hands of the youth, but the youth are told that they need to use these inventions to survive, but not too much of it. The older generation warns the children not to use their phones so much, and they ridicule the children for technology use, even though it’s the older generations that created the technology in the first place. The children are just born into this.

I think about it in the case of AI. We preach the importance of not using AI because it destroys the environment and it ruins our ability to think for ourselves and work hard. But then we ingrain it into every Google search, it’s on billboards, it shows up at our jobs, in our emails, in our schools. And it’s not a choice when a livelihood is dependent on it, when it’s the thing that gets Icarus out of prison, the thing that companies want to use and we have to be okay with in order to work for those companies. We all suffer from it in different ways, but the people in power and the inventors aren’t the ones who will face the biggest consequences from the climate crisis, the dopamine addictions, the economic crashes, the job market, or the loss of art. We don’t often share the tales of how King Minos or Daedalus died and treat their deaths like a lesson to be learned.

How is it hubris to want to fly too close to the sun after you’ve been given wings, but it isn’t interpreted as hubris to create wings in the first place, to defy Poseidon or any god you believe in, to be a king making commands on a whim? And if you were Icarus, a child in prison for his father’s doings, how trustworthy would you really find his advice?

It feels to me like the common modern interpretation of the tale of Icarus is telling the people who have been imprisoned or oppressed to not be happy and ambitious and revel in freedom once they get it. It seems ambition is only regarded as a threat when you aren’t the one already born with power.

And I know it’s supposed to be a metaphor, but I don’t think Icarus was even flying out of ambition or recklessness or hubris. I think he was flying out of excitement for his freedom. If you were in prison then suddenly let free, how casually do you think you would walk out? If you were in the desert dying of thirst, then given a cup of water and told to take small sips, how fair is it to call it hubris for downing the entire thing in a gulp? If you are a human deprived of a human need, how is it arrogant to enjoy having that need met and then wanting better for yourself? Why is that the lesson that we are passing on?

I don’t think arrogance is a desirable trait. But I think arrogance is a king keeping a bull in a maze, not a child trying to fly.

The common modern retelling of Icarus is another lesson in itself. That people love to blame the victims and the dead and anyone who isn’t a man in power. That people will tell the half of their story that says what they want it to say. We say that curiosity killed the cat and never mention that satisfaction brought it back. We ask the survivors what they were wearing.

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Okay anyway. Those are my quick thoughts for now lol. But I’ve been thinking about this a lot and I really wanna write a poem about it so hopefully that will happen soon and I will continue to update this blog because I love and miss writing soooo much.