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Classical  mythology, Greek, Norse, any mythology anywhere, is a treasure for anyone. Any search, even a casual wandering through that house of treasures, will yield riches beyond measure to even the dullest of minds. Many of us, for example, are currently thinking about Pandora and her box. She is on everyone’s mind at the moment because the newspapers opened her box and we are seeing all sorts of foul and greedy vapors as we find out what various millionaires do to get more gold.  

Another mythical figure is Icarus who talked his father, Daedalus, the craftsman, into trying to escape from Crete,  a place that neither of them liked, a place where they had enemies. Daedalus made great wings of wax and feathers for Icarus and warned him to not get too close to either the sun which would melt the wax or the sea which would soften the feathers, but Icarus was proud, he had ‘hubris’, and he flew too high, too close to the sun. The wax of his wings melted, he fell into the sea, and drowned. 

The myth of Icarus tells us, individually and collectively, to not become proud or vain because we will pay a price, but the story may also be given a literal twist in our day of hopeful space travel. Those technological wings are held together by very expensive wax, by billions of research dollars and environmental stress, and there will be risk.

The kingdom of Icarus, as myth or machine or both, is not a good model for humankind, not a place for “thy will be done, on earth as in heaven”, not a good place for loving your enemies.