He was basically referring to life’s difficulties and that the wings of wax symbolizes our hopes, our aspirations, the dreams,the illusions; and we search for the sun. That is the truth. But the irony is that, if we ever actually find the sun, the wax will melt and we fall like Icarus, but we still are on that quest. Icarus represents the metaphysical rebellion within us, like he himself put it.

However I find this a pessimistic approach to take resort in such philosophy during hard times. This modal represents the “no point” desperation of individual entering life’s realities. Installing philosophy in this perspective is sheer misuse of biological processing/imagination. That is, to think that life’s all messed up and desperately trying to think above the system. Desperate because others around us cant think in our shoes. They seem not to get the point, our “point” rather. Philosophy apart… why didn’t Icarus be smart enough to get down, get a proper wing made and try flying higher? Like Wright brothers! :P We are thinking using complex systems. Instead get down to the basics. If you can analyze… our “thinking”, feeling of “aham” or the feeling of “me”, comes from the processor called the brain. The brain is an organ system, if interconnected neurons. Neurons are simple basically and its their complexity in wiring that makes “us” intelligent to “think”. Getting down… We realize that its nature at play. In this respect… go back in history. Why did simple cells decide to evolve into complex systems? Or why didn’t they, in some other way? Why didn’t they get desperate and philosophical? Because that wasn’t just the right way to do things! Nature… “selects” to the right way of doing things automatically . It’s like Lego building blocks that snap in place only one way! So my point is, the human psyche is just another of nature’s chaos seeking order. We are still evolving or permuting towards “order”. It’s wiser to move on… and try something else… and be cautious in the tread or be selected out. Just like cells are nature, thinking is nature… society is nature.. “life’s difficulties” are natures challenges. So.. Icarus died… Because he couldn’t adapt. Stories of Icarus are pointers to lessons that have to be learnt so that similar mistake is not made again. Stories of Icarus do NOT describe “no point” whine, but rather tell us to be wiser in our endeavors.

So where should one place philosophy? The thing is philosophy is not about sitting and whining. It may help you understand about social difficulties , about the social fabric or the non existence of it, about the pretensions and all that. It’s just that sometimes, some things inspire people. They see stuff in stuff and come out with stuff. That’s why you have artists and painters and poets. That’s how you have culture. But sometimes philosophy is needed to understand things and to find a way out of it. First you have to define something and why that is… before u can find a solution. Actually there are a lot of things that defy human logic.