Daedalus and Icarus

Daedalus was a talented Athenian Inventor/artist/sculptor and decedent from from the "first king of Athens" often referred to as mythical. Even though he knew he was well valued, he committed a crime of envy against Talus, his nephew and apprentice. When Talus devised the saw, Daedalus, out of jealousy, threw Talus off of the Acropolis. For this, Daedalus was sent to Crete and forced to serve under King Minos, where he had Icarus with a beautiful mistress-slave of King Minos. One of Daedalus' most famous works was the Labyrinth that Minos wanted to imprison the Minotaur (the head of a bull and the body of a man). The Minotaur was the son of Minos' wife and the bull that Poseidon sent as a gift. Because this creature was born, he imprisoned him in the Labyrinth where it fed on humans. Theseus, the King of Athens, went to slay the Minotaur to end the human sacrifice to Minos. Minos' daughter however fell in love with Theseus and went to Daedalus to help Theseus through the Labyrinth. From this the Minotaur was slain and Theseus returned from the maze. Minos, pissed off, put Daedalus and Icarus in the Labyrinth to punish Daedalus. To escape, Daedalus came up with his famous plan of wings and flying them out of Crete. From feathers and wax the wings were build and then during the breakout, Daedalus warned Icarus not to fly too low and get the wings wet and not to fly too for the sun would melt the wax. But Icarus, to happy because he was flying flew too close to the sun where the wax melted and he fell. Different stories claim that Daedalus died and claim that he survived and Icarus' body was found and buried where it still is recognized by a rock jutting into the Aegean Sea.

As for risk and obedience, I enjoy taking risks. Sometimes they don't end up beneficial to me, but most of the time I am lucky and they do. For this, I really enjoy the exploration of new things and creating of new things like Daedalus. I tend to stay to the "instructions" of life if that is what obedience is, but every once and a while, I stray from those "instructions" having a disheartening experience or something that puts me against something else.

One of my riskier experiences was going to Guatemala on a mission trip my freshman year summer. There, in a country where I could not speak spanish (I took latin) or the native language, I manage to change someone's life forever building a cinder block home for the needy family. At the end of the trip, we stayed in a Hostel in Guatemala City and I have never been that scared for my safety before or since. Our guide, actually from lexington, but he went and never returned he loved so much, took us around the city in vans and drove us by streets that he warned "Don't go down that street. It is controlled by a gang and you either be murdered or will have to pay an enormous amount of money to escape with your life." He actually said this many times on that tour which I still remember was the most anxious 2 hour tour I have been on.

http://artsurvey.umwblogs.org/files/2012/07/attaching-wings.jpg

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