A man has got to know his limitations

A man has got to know his limitations.

A man who doesn’t know his limits easily falls into the trap of hubris, which is overbearing pride, an arrogant presumptiveness stemming from an inflated sense of our own ability and a wilful blindness to our limits.

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Warnings against hubris are a common part of ancient western literature.

The story of Icarus, son of the master craftsman Daedalus demonstrates the danger of hubris.

Icarus’s father Daedalus, a very talented and remarkable Athenian craftsman.

Daedalus built the Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete near his palace at Knossos to imprison the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster born of his wife and the Cretan bull. Minos imprisoned Daedalus himself in the labyrinth because…

… he gave Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, a clew (or ball of string) in order to help Theseus, the enemy of Minos, to survive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.

Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son.

Daedalus tried his wings first, but before trying to escape the island, he warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight.

Overcome by the giddiness that flying lent him, Icarus soared into the sky, but in the process he came too close to the sun, which due to the heat melted the wax. Icarus kept flapping his wings but soon realized that he had no feathers left and that he was only…

…flapping his bare arms, and so Icarus fell into the sea and drowned in the area which today bears his name, the Icarian Sea near Icaria, an island southwest of Samos.

Icarus, lacking emotional regulation, was overcome by excitement and temptation ignoring his limits and his fathers wise warnings which resulted in his death. A lethal lack of Agency.

Fortunately you can develop stronger Agency and I can help you. DM me for details.