Icarus.

moe., the excellent troubadours from New York, have a song called "Plane Crash" which analogizes air travel with drug use. When one overdoes it, one is "too fucking high."

Which got me to thinking about Icarus, the child of Greek mythology. As the myth goes, Icarus was imprisoned on Crete by Minos. In an attempt to safely escape, Icarus attempted flight. His wings were created with string, feathers, and wax. His father Daedalus told him not to fly too low, lest the feathers sop up too much seawater, and not to fly too high, lest the wax melt. [Aside: is it not interesting that Greeks thought higher altitudes would yield higher temperatures?] Which is usually considered a cautionary tale of hubris.

But after comparing to "Plane Crash," is it not a possible alternate reading of the myth to think of Icarus' flight as a cautionary tale of substance abuse? That Daedalus was instructing his child in his first encounter with, say, opium? Under this reading, Daedalus was considering a life with too little opium hardly worthwhile (cold, wet, salty, and filled with fish; life will drag you to your grave earlier with too few little pick-me-ups), but a life with too much could lead to death (by being "too fucking high": overdosing). When taken in context, this reading seems unlikely; but if modernity has taught me anything, it is to coopt the stories of our ancestors to achieve questionable conclusions. And, it must be noted, this reading is not that ridiculous. After all, the baseline "hubris" reading cautions both against excess and insufficient pride; the "too fucking high" reading cautions both against excess and insufficient pleasure.

So next time someone asks you how Icarus died, reply, "he was too fucking high."