This writing is intended for those who feel a call toward the truth within themselves. It is not written to judge, but to offer a mirror — gentle, yet clear. It is for all who are ready to look inside, to accept their own vulnerability, and from there begin a new, firmer path. If today you feel that the time is not yet right, that is completely fine. Save these words for the moment when you are ready. Truth never leaves – it simply waits for us to invite it closer.

In every person who has ever yearned for more – for a greater meaning, a bigger achievement, greater recognition – lives an Icarus. Icarus is not someone else. Icarus is that part within you that can no longer patiently wait, that seeks validation, that yearns to prove its worth to the world and, above all, to itself. Icarus is your ego.

And within you, beneath all that noise, lives Daedalus. Silent. Steady. Unmoved by the rhythm of external rewards, seeking no validation. He is your inner wisdom. He is your inner body. Your natural harmony with life, your chronic rhythm that keeps you alive. Daedalus within you does not measure progress by height but by steps – in solid, slow building that must respect the laws of time, nature, physics, and truth.

Every genuine relationship between body and ego, every real journey of growth, reflects the relationship between Daedalus and Icarus within your inner world.

The ego – Icarus – begins with passion, enthusiasm, with a desire to prove it can soar, to rise above the ordinary, to prove its worth. The body – Daedalus – watches, helps, and remains silent. Not out of fear for the ego, but because it knows that every Icarus must fall. That every ego must encounter the limits of its understanding.

Yet, the relationship between them is not always pure. It is not always full of respect. For when Icarus bears within him chronic sensory-motor amnesia, he loses contact with Daedalus. He no longer perceives the reality of his position, loses the sense of his true depth, underestimates the importance of Daedalus and his limits, and creates an illusion of power and significance.

When this Icarus can no longer be honest with himself, when he refuses to acknowledge his wounds, his fear, his inner emptiness, he no longer sees Daedalus as the body, as an essential part of the whole, but merely as a tool – something to be used to maintain his illusion.

He forgets that the strength he admired in Daedalus was the result of time, effort, and sacrifice. He believes he is already the same, merely because he wishes or needs to be, even though the time for it has not yet come. He does not understand that wisdom cannot be worn like a cloak. It must be earned, grown as one’s own skin.

Thus, the ego begins to use the body for its own ends. With its sensory-motor amnesia, its distorted perception of itself and the world, it believes it is entitled to do so. Since it cannot generate its own syntropy and grow from an internal sense of order and feeling, it needs the energy of another. It needs the body.

To ensure a steady flow of energy, it must awaken entropy in the body – instilling doubt, pain, and exhaustion. The body can no longer meet the ego’s insatiable needs. In time, the body is blamed for failures and the ego credits itself for coerced successes. The relationship reaches a point where the body ceases to be a companion and becomes a slave to the ego.

However, the flow of energy is not infinite. The body begins to withdraw. Not from anger. Not from vengeance, for such emotions are absent in the body. It withdraws out of the simple laws of nature: when there is no longer true respect, no genuine willingness to learn and cooperate, when the ego chronically exploits the body, the bridge between them breaks. And when the body can no longer provide energy, the ego falls.

The fall is not as the proud imagine it to be. It is not heroic. It is not dramatic. It is quiet. Empty. A loss of meaning. A loss of orientation. And only there, in the silence of the fall, can the moment of truth arise.

If the ego can endure the silence of depression caused by the collapse of its illusion of omnipotence. If it does not flee back into guilt, into blame, into seeking another body to exploit. If it dares to remain present in the raw, unvarnished pain of loss, then true transformation can begin.

At that moment, the ego truly feels, for the first time, that it never actually walked. That it never built anything solid. That it was always merely taming illusions. Only when it realizes this does the possibility arise that it can begin to walk — slowly, not to fly again, but to earn the ground beneath its feet.

The immature ego often unknowingly destroys what has given it the most. Not because it is evil. But because it is not yet capable of bearing the responsibility for the energy it receives. It does not yet know how to be gentle with what holds it up. Because it received what holds it from ancestors whom it hates, and that hatred remains hidden within the body under a cover of alienation from it.

Thus, the ego does not see that with its flight, based on the wings of the body, it threatens not only itself but also that which enabled its flight. It is not just about who flies higher. It is about who knows how to walk more sincerely. Who knows how to respect the process. Who knows how to accept that true greatness is achieved only when your footsteps echo in silence, not in applause.

When you no longer need others to give you energy. When you can slowly and patiently turn your entropy into your own syntropy. When you can build order within yourself. When you can be human, not an illusion.

Thus, the ego, once striving to be greater than the body, finally understands that greatness is not in defeating the body. Greatness is in respecting it and walking your path with the same humility toward life that the body has lived long before you.

And only then, in that silence, do you truly become ready to pass on the wings — not for a quick flight, but for a long, steady, real ascent.

Within each of us live both Icarus and Daedalus. In each of us lives the call for heights and the need for earth. And every life gives us the opportunity to step from the illusion of the ego into the clarity of truth. To transform from Narcissus into a true human being. Not through victory. But through a fall. And through the choice, after the fall, not to build new wings of illusion nor to live from hatred toward Daedalus.

But to build from steps. From silence. From truth. Because silence remains. Because truth remains. Because the only thing that endures is the step you take with full presence, born from the pain of the fall that breaks through sensory-motor amnesia.

And it is precisely this step, born of pain and matured into wisdom, that can take you where the wings of the ego never could.

If you are willing to take that step — slowly, consciously, with your feet on the ground and your heart open to the truth — I will meet you on the path. There, where people are born, not merely dreams.

In closing:

Every true path begins when we are ready for it. Not before. Not because someone else urges us. But because we feel inside that the time has come.

If today is not that day – honor your rhythm. But if within you you feel the pulse of truth, then you already know: The first step is always the quietest. Yet it is that quiet step that changes everything.

Aleš Ernst, Author of the AEQ Approach