The flight of Icarus

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It was not so long ago that I was beginning to think of myself a bit like Icarus. Icarus, if you remember, is the character from Greek mythology who flies too close to the sun despite the warnings of his father, and plunges to his death as the wax in his wings melt. It's a really good story, and very much a story with a message.

It was only 2 weeks ago that I drifted around Toorak shopping centre wondering if there was something I should be learning. Being in Toorak was significant. For many years I lived a stone's throw away, and knew the place like the back of my hand. I looked at the familiar, poked my head inside shops, browsed the newsagents wondering, where did it go wrong? Was it still right here? Where did I take the wrong turn?

I felt chastened. Icarus came naturally to mind as a like figure, not just for me but friends of mine once high flying now earthbound. Did I take it for granted? Did I expect it ever to be so? Yes, probably I did. Was I arrogant? I baulked at that. It was hard not to feel that we were paying for our collective hubris, yet I could not detail what that hubris was. Perhaps I was careless, but I was never arrogant.

Yet there I was, questioning, a little lost, like my friends the CFO's of yesterday, the FC's, wondering how this could be and what would come of it. I remember that day entering a deli and being greeted by the French couple running it. She was a vivacious, lively woman and we engaged in banter. She made me a coffee. We talked some more. It came out easily and well, almost too much so. Even as I spoke and smiled and browsed the shelves and sipped the coffee she had made me my mind was fixed on this one thing. I felt like I had lost. I had played, had won for a long time, but ultimately lost.

I was not bitter. I could laugh after all with the French lady. And I knew no matter how bleak things appeared it was not the end of it: the sun would rise again on the morrow, I would get another chance to play. Yet I wondered if it would be for the same stakes as before. In a sense that seemed a very true metaphor. I had spent most of my recent life playing at the big table; now I had lost my stake and had too little to buy in. Now I could only watch.

There is little sense in dwelling upon the bleak reality; just as there is little sense in avoiding it. Pragmatic but positive is the way to be, and thankfully that is my default setting - with a dash of the intense. I wondered if I would ever reclaim my place. I wanted to, if only to prove that I could. And in all honesty I hate being a supplicant, and I passionately dislike not having control over my life.

There was a larger question I asked of myself though. It is characteristic of my personality and my outlook that I pondered if there was a deeper meaning to all this. My friends in similar positions shrugged their shoulders; I had to know. I had got past the earlier reflex questions, but at the same time I wondered if in the sequence of events there was not a message for me. Most particularly I wondered if I should change my ways - strive less, expect less, lower my ambitions, live smaller. Had I, like Icarus, overestimated my own ability? Need I fly lower, be safer?

You have no idea how difficult these questions are for me to deal with. It goes against the grain to conform to some standard: that's not who I want to be. And while I admit to being ambitious and aggressive and yes, ruthless occasionally, I have always sought to be decent and honest. I believe I am a kind and compassionate man and I am happy to be that. I would be gentler if I could be, but I think I am gentler than most. So...

Where I outreached myself was in how I began to 'value' what was good and not so good in my life. I strayed from the values inside me to more conventional and materialistic values without. I have never been one to judge myself on what I have done, more how I have done it. I lost some sight of that, much as I described a few weeks back. Well, that was settled, perhaps, but what of the larger question?

A man can't be happy unless he is true to himself. It's a simple axiom but very true - and often overlooked. It's not the secret to happiness - happiness comes in many guises - but it's certain that happiness cannot exist unless one accepts that self inside.

I'm a gambler, that's my personality. I play poker and I'm a bluffer. I've spent a career defying my credentials to climb to heights I don't belong. I always go for the high risk/return option with my investments. I prefer movement to stability. I like change, mostly, and enjoy challenging the status quo. I want to push and to agitate and to apply my might, I want to be used, filled, want to be involved because to be involved is to feel alive. I want to challenge the boundaries and go by them. This is who I am. For fucks sake, I'm Icarus, and if my destiny is to go down in flames then so be it. The only way you'll discover what is possible is by testing it. That's who I am, that's who I want to be - and I guess I get to fly.

What I'm saying is being safe and conservative is not who I am, and not who I'm meant to be. I'm not crazy, I'm not about to fly into the sun to prove a point. I'm a smart man. I'll measure, I'll calculate, I'll assess, and then I'll opt for the choice which seems most fun - invariable the edgier option. So be it. I'm too old to change now, and too grumpy to try it.

That's where I am. I'm sure, for what it's worth, that I will get all the way back, and beyond. I've lost a lot, but there's no value in thinking on that - better to focus on what can be won. I believe in karma, in everything evening out within the space of a few lifetimes, I believe the wheel turns eternally and that if you're tough enough to hang in there it'll turn for you.

Too soon to say, and many years and mysteries before me, but in the last few weeks it has begun to turn. True to my spirit I went hard, double or nothing, and I look like doubling, touch wood. And from having no choices I now seem to have a plenitude of them. The trick now is to respect them, and not take them for granted. Still a long journey ahead.