A Bedtime Story: The Story of Icarus and Atlas

This is totally a rerun, so if you've been reading any blog written by me for a year or so, you may recognize it. I wrote it from a specific context in my life, but it's kind of a riddle that I've never really felt resolved about. Any help?

The Story of Icarus and Atlas

Once upon a time, in a village not far from here, there lived two men (neighbors, as a matter of fact) named Icarus and Atlas. The village in which they lived had no name, for it was surrounded by a mystical and enchanted forest that was too thick to traverse. People who were courageous enough to venture into the woods quickly lost their way home, because there were no roads and the woods were so dense.

One day, while Atlas and Icarus were strolling through the village, they began to talk about the possibility of their being other villages like their own somewhere outside, beyond the bounds of the mystical forest. "If we cleared a road through the forest," said Atlas to his friend, "we could safely travel outside of the village in a straight line until we came upon some other people."

"Great idea," answered Icarus. "We ought to begin first thing in the morning." And, as the men separated at their houses, they settled in for a night filled with hope and anticipation for the exciting journey that was to begin at sunrise.

The next morning, however, their hope soon met with frustration when conflict about which direction they should clear. "It seems quite obvious to me," said Atlas, "that since the Sun sets in the west, this is the direction in which we will find other villages, because the Sun must visit us first," for it was common knowledge in the village that evenings were so much warmer than mornings because the mornings were when the Sun was first getting started and needed time to warm up from the cool of night. "If anyone lived to the east," Atlas concluded, "the Sun would be fully warmed by the time it reached us."

"Only a fool would believe such nonsense," said Icarus, since he felt himself a rather wise and educated man. "If anyone lived to the west of us, the Sun would surely be too warm by the time that it was over them for any kind of comfortable life. Instead, we should strike out east, where we will find a cooler but still somewhat hospitable land."

The two men argued and argued outside of their homes in the center of the village. As the Sun was setting (in the west, an event which Atlas continually referenced as his proof), the two men realized that they would never agree, and each determined to set out in his own direction the next morning.

At the sunrise the next day, the two went out to opposite ends of the village and began their work. From sunrise to sunset the two men chopped and chopped, each trying to outpace the other and comforting themselves with the futility of the work of the other. "After all," each man thought, "there are no people where he is heading." And on they chopped until nightfall.

The next morning, after both men had had some well earned sleep, both men were surprised and disappointed to find that the entirety of the forest each had cleared the day before had completely regrown in the night. Resilient, each man picked up his axe and began clearing again.

And so it continued for years, each man heading out in the morning, chopping all day, and sleeping all night, only to return the next morning to find that all of their clearing had regrown. After seven years of this daily pattern, Atlas decided that he had had enough. "This is foolishness," Atlas said to his neighbor. "Everyday we slave and toil, and every night the magic restores every branch of every tree we chop down."

"I'll never quit," replied Icarus, "for that is a greater foolishness. One day, Atlas, the magic will fail, and I will be able to clear the forest and make progress on my road."

The next morning, Icarus went out and chopped and Atlas stayed at home and drank tea, as was the custom in that village, and--for Icarus--the pattern continued. He went out at sunrise, chopped down trees all day, slept all night, only to return the next morning to find that all of his clearing had regrown. After another week of this, it occured to Icarus that maybe the forest was always growing and that he and Atlas' work was just keeping it from further encroaching on the village.

To test this thought, he went to the west edge of the village, to where Atlas had been chopping, to see if the magic that was restoring the forest was also enlarging it. To his great surprise, he found that the last day's work of chopping that Atlas had done had not regrown. "That fool," he said to himself. "He stopped chopping the very day that the magic quit working. It's power must be fading! If I continue to chop, it will eventually stop working on the east side of the village as well."

So he returned to his routine: every morning at sunrise he would go out, chop down trees all day, sleep all night, and find every morning that the magic was still working in his portion of the woods. The hope that he was close to outlasting the magic faded within the coming months, yet whenever he would ponder abandoning the project, he would remember that Atlas had quit the day the magic stopped, and that as long as there was any chance that the magic might stop, it was worth it for him to keep trying.

And so the pattern continued: wake up, chop, sleep, find that it had regrown. Days turned into weeks, weeks to months, months to years, and years to decades.

Until one day, Icarus died.



Now then, having read the story, who is the fool? Is it Atlas, who gave up a hair shy of the moment that he would have received the reward for his work? Or is it Icarus, who worked away a lifetime striving after a prize that would never be?



Peace, love, and joy to you all.