We are very good at telling stories about the fall. Ego ruins the hero. Pride comes before the disaster. Icarus flies too close to the sun, and the wax gives way.
I keep thinking about the flight that came first.
Before Icarus fell, Daedalus had to imagine a way off the ground. Someone had to look at an impossible situation and believe he could build his way out of it. The warning is memorable. So is the audacity.
The engine
Ego has been an engine in my own life. When I find someone better than me at something I care about, I want to close the gap. Then I want to move past it. That competitive instinct has pushed me into work I might otherwise have avoided.
Someone else’s ceiling does not have to become mine. Their success gives me a target, a reason to reconsider what I thought was possible.
When I moved from pre-medicine into computer science, the field already felt like a race. A crowded job market and uncertainty about AI made it easy to imagine reasons to choose something else. I chose to compete.
Someone else’s ceiling does not have to become mine.
The next horizon
The target kept moving. I would catch up to someone I admired and notice someone else further ahead. My ego made standing still uncomfortable. It kept asking what I would have to do next.
I understand why the story ends with Icarus falling. It is a warning worth hearing. But ambition also needs a story about leaving the ground.
There is no final person to surpass, no victory that makes the work complete. There is another horizon. I want to keep flying toward it.