Icarus wouldn’t heed the warnings of his father and flew too close to the sun, melting his wings and plummeting to his own demise. Sisyphus cursed for eternity, rolled his stone up the mountain time and again, only to have it tumble back down, never daring to wonder what would happen if he stopped toiling and walked away. The overarching belief in the Nordic myths far and away from Greece, was that the world would inevitably end in mayhem; so, people eagerly pined for an honorable death, so they could dine with the gods in Valhalla, and fight alongside them in the final battle. But were they fulfilled by the life in their days that led up to it? Or, was it all just a means to a certain end?
There seems to be a common undercurrent in the myths of ancient people, and the core beliefs of all humans spanning for thousands of years of our recorded history; fear and failure are constants, and our ego bids us to care more for the ends than the means. We inherently believe that our fate is sealed; that we will suffer and we will die. I started clipping through all of these old myths in my mind the other day while I was thinking back on my own life. I saw myself as Icarus, then as Sisyphus, and finally as a dying Viking warrior desperately grasping for my sword before I expired, so that I could enter the halls of Valhalla as an esteemed warrior on the other side. What I realized was the connection these myths share; they are each of them, like layers of a larger underlying belief about the human condition which tells us that we can only climb so high, or fight so hard before we inevitably perish. Then I looked at the parallels these stories have to my own life.
Ever since I was a little boy, I’ve been a dreamer. I’ve always felt that I was meant for something more and yearned for it, whatever it is. I always had big dreams, but failure was like a knife that dealt wounds that couldn’t heal. At a young age, I began to build barriers in my mind to my dreams and even simple things that would make me happy out of fear and self-doubt. What aspirations at first seemed attainable with focus and diligence, became impossible. My wings were scorched by the sun, and I fell back to Earth to begin toiling away in aimless despair; pushing the stone up the mountain. I stayed there for years, pushing that metaphorical stone up the mountain in the form of hard labor jobs all over the Northwestern US, and an accompanying propensity for excessive drinking. I had stopped dreaming, and fell into non-existence where I lived only day by day. Every time I marked an achievement or reached a new height, I fell. Everyday I lived a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Like Icarus, I finally plummeted to certain demise; but, the man who died was the fearful, prideful, ne’er-do-well that served as a calloused shell of the man waiting within. The old me perished, scorched by the heat of the sun, to drift into the depths as a charred hollow carcass. I had lived my life in fear of rising to the calls of my soul to be more, happy, and live free. I allowed myself to fall victim to the unfortunate events of my life and accepted a booze fueled lie that told me every moment that I was dull and weak, and mediocre. I wouldn’t try new things for fear of embarrassment or injury. I wouldn’t communicate for fear of vulnerability. I wouldn’t commit for fear of failure and pain. I isolated myself out of fear of connection and a deep-seated mistrust of myself that I projected onto unwitting contemporaries. I was afraid of reaching new heights and flying too close to the sun. I had relegated myself to pushing the stone.
When I fell and the charred remains of my body plunged into the depths, I floated there in an inanimate state for a moment; then, I rose again. The shock of breaching the waters surface and the cold depths reanimated me, and my baptism was complete; the warrior arose. I swam against the tide and finally made it to shore, where the battle for my soul began. I stopped lying to myself and putting myself down. I stopped drinking and started putting myself first. I started looking to the sunrise with hope rather than fear, and started to wonder what’s beyond it.
In a sense, the Vikings were right. The world will inevitably end for every person, in death; but, that doesn’t mean that our lives are meaningless. Thanks to freewill, I can choose as an individual to use my time to be a force for good and have a net positive affect on the lives of others, if for no other reason than to soften the blow of mortality for those I care for in my orbit.
The unhealthy beliefs I developed about myself as a result of being ill-equipped to cope with failures as a child nearly killed me; but, I also learned an important lesson: What is lost, is never gone and it’s not over. Fear can enter the mind through many doorways and it led me to confine myself to the belief that if I flew I’d fall, or If I wandered I’d fail, and if I fought I’d lose. This is the lie that played over and over in my mind, fueled by alcohol abuse.
Now I look down and see two hands. They are scarred, calloused, and stiff from the December cold; but, they are strong and wield the torch of my internal flame. At will, they now take up the wings of Icarus, cast the stone aside, and take hold of the Viking sword. If self-doubt is ever your first thought, challenge it and scrutinize it. Give yourself a chance to be beyond belief.
