Icarus, the Turtle Spirit and Mahabharata

Finally my head’s cleared about what’s so important about a naked guy falling down from the sky, namely Icarus, the Turtle spirit story which I thought was ‘blah’ and the Mahabharata.

Okay, Icarus may, or may not be naked – it was just some of the artists’ impression of him. Anyways. He’s not just some kid who were given a pair of wings by his dad to fly and got too near to the sun and melted the wax off his wings.

He represents freedom. He represents the Romantic spirit. He represents aspiration. He represents individualism. So we were told by Dr. Edwin. It makes so much sense now. But he fell into the sea and died. That was the price to pay to be different, to be unconventional. He’s not herding sheep or fishing out of necessity like everyone else, he is flying. FLYING! How many people can do that? Well of course, there is that thing called an aeroplane, but that’s not the point. He dared to reach for the sky, but he fell. Like the saying goes, “what goes up, must come down.” Moral of the story is, if we dare to dream big, to fly, we must dare to fail, and to fall someday.

As for The Son of The Turtle-Spirit, I finally got the whole idea about it. Or, I think I do. It’s about listening to your mother, yet defying another power. Is it wrong? Is it ethical? Of course you’d listen to your mother anytime of the day (or not), but she’s that one person who can make you do stuff (or not). Nobody else can, say, the government? There’s this rebellious voice of, “You’re not my mother, why should I listen to you?” Hence, the boy listened to his mother to replace the bones with his father’s inside the mud dragon’s mouth. But, what if the consequences are way bigger than your mother? Say, to cover the truth of your FBI-hunted dad’s whereabouts because your mother told you so? Would you obey your mother and deceive the FBIs, or disobey your mother and turn in your father? Indeed, from a simple tale, comes a not so simple value.

Now the Mahabharata. All I can say is, my interpretation is way, way off. I thought there’d be something bigger, but that’s just it. It’s just about sacrifice.

In which we will discuss with Dr. Edwin soon.