How incredibly fortunate to be born of two philosophers.
One of many maxim’s my sage mother has imparted is: put small bags into one big one.
When travelling as kids, say to school (ever delayed) it would seem on possibly every single occasion that something would be forgotten by myself or my sister. This would require an exceptionally dramatic backpedal through Nairobi traffic to collect said items before achieving sustained forward momentum towards our destination. Her four wheel drive Pajero proved a formidable weapon fending off the barrage of matatus and commuting melee that lay in our path traversing the lush green pothole addled streets of the capital.
What was it this time? School tie, homework booklet, lunch box, sports shoes, reading glasses, all manner of things (you get the picture). The principle that arose out of this was a simple one: pack a single bag early, plan ahead by putting every loose required item in that bag. Funnily enough we only perfected this later in life but the idea of having a hairbrush in one hand, Yo-Yo in the other, folder under the armpits, briefcase in your teeth, backpack over the shoulder; somehow all seemed so necessary in the rush to make up time after snoozing through our alarm clocks.
Extrapolate the ontological axiom here and we find a premise not too dissimilar from a Stoic meditation by Philosopher Marcus Aurelius: “It is essential for you to remember that the attention you give to any action should be in due proportion to its worth…”
Put all individual pursuits under the umbrella of one supernarative and that gives you the chance of not losing focus on any one of them: they each serve the higher purpose. My mother exemplifies this as a writer, business owner, philanthropist, storyteller, and visionary. Undertaken individually, in an unrelated capacity to each other, and the maxim suggests they are harder to maintain concurrently - as a unified vision, they are complementary.
My father’s philosophy is similarly stoic and prescient, one favourite maxim being that if you are patient standing still / going slow, others will crash and burn trying to race ahead.
Daedalus, father to Icarus, promoted the same ideal. The lore contends that they were both once stranded on an island; the solution they came up with was to mesh together feathers dropped from birds with a sticky wax adhesive such that they’d fashion wings for themselves and fly to freedom. Upon lift off, daedalus preached the steady course just below the clouds to get them across the long journey. Icarus was overcome with awe at the experience - soaring and swooping with reckless abandon. His exuberance was so overwhelming, despite his father’s pleas, that he flew so close to the sun that the wax melted (his feather fell apart) and he crashed into the seas - drowning.
Daedalus of course makes it to the other side but mourns the loss of his son. Was there leeway for him not to stick so rigidly to his course? To fly with Icarus a little and indulge his flights of fancy enough that they’d be able to find a kindred compromise between steadiness and volatility? Whilst daedalus makes it to the other end, at what cost? There’s something here around meeting people where they are, for instance had the hare not fallen asleep when racing the tortoise but rather run alongside him till they neared the finish - the outcome may have been very different.
.jpg%3Ftable%3Dblock%26id%3D71fbbe13-d2d6-455a-888e-a59c6260f26b%26cache%3Dv2?width=1500&optimizer=image)
