2nd Strike: Icarus & Daedelus, and Ovid's painting

For today; Icarus and Daedelus.

Now, here's something that used to be an old bedtime story that my elders (parents!) would tell to scare the living lights out of me (so that I'll be an obedient son), with wings, suns and lots of wax.

So, a quick recap on Daedelus and Icarus. Dad works for king, gets himself imprisoned for his own work. Son follows dad into imprisonment. Dad wants to plan a prison break, and has this marvelous idea involving feathers and wax. So plan A, no cliche, no "sudden" deus-ex-machina element, father plans the escape and tells the sun "don't fly too high, don't fly too low".

So in short, a wingman follows the lead. But our wingman here, Icarus, flew too near the sun (or too high). His wax melted, he stalled, and dived straight into his death. The rest is history.

So we as readers, we cry. Or not.

Now here's an interesting part. Dr. Edwin now shows us "The Fall of Icarus" by Ovid. Now, the funny thing is that Icarus's leg is shown, albeit only his leg, and he's drawn small. Nobody notices, nobody pays attention. Is everyone oblivious?

No. Because the loss is not theirs. The loss is only felt to those who feel the loss. Its certainly not the loss for me (as a reader), or the sheperd, or the fisherman, or the people in the galleon.Not them, but only to Daedelus.

But let's pause for a moment. Rewind back 15 years, and fast forward it back to the present. Check. Take a brief comparison on emotional response. Check. Take a brief look at the reasons. Check. Conclusion? I've learnt to see the event from 2 eyes. One as a 1st party spectator ( a reader/ an audience). Another as a passerby (who may or may not have an interest in the event) who just happens to be where I'm at. And I've learn to accept that other perspectives are equally viable.

And it just evolves. Dr. Edwin says, "go back and think about it". So here, weeks later, I'm here and blogging it. There has to be a change in our views. I realized that when I first heard the story, and many years later now that I'm reading it, there's a shift in judgement, opinion and what I see, and what I don't. There's a change. Its just whether we choose to acknowledge it or not.

Taking a class in literature certainly helps to empower one's mind to look at things from a different angle. And I literally mean "a different angle, a different approach".

So much for Ovid, so much for Icarus.