By: Katie Pruess
To fly too close to the sun is better than to never have flown at all.
To bask loudly in the sweeping, all encompassing vastness of the unknown is better than to have withered away quietly in the familiar. We are taught that daring to dream a dream that feels too big is prideful, misguided, and foolish. Believing in yourself to the point of following through with the things you said you would do, even if it does all end in flames, is immediately considered a sign of carelessness. If you fly too high, you are considered selfish or full of yourself, and if you don’t fly high enough, you’re considered unmotivated and uninspired.
To constantly consider the world’s considerations of you instead of your own is to stand completely still, weighed down by expectations you never set or dreamed of for yourself. Icarus was many things; ambitious, hopeful, determined, so why is foolishness the thing that people hang onto most when his tale is told? Sure, some balance between his ambition and his actual game plan could have done some good. But why, after being held captive for so long and living a life so far from his own, is the initial reaction to call him irresponsible?
Icarus took ownership of the life he saw for himself and did the best he could with the tools he was given. When he caught a glimpse of the sunshine on his face and the wind through the wings he worked tirelessly to construct, can you blame him for trying to get as close as humanly possible to that feeling? We were divinely placed on this Earth, at this specific time, with nothing but a name and the ability to construct and create our own reality.
If risking it all for even a chance at our most impossible dreams is foolish; may we never be reasonable.