“Life is that which can hold a purpose for 3,000 years and never yield. The individual fails, but life succeeds. The individual is foolish, but life holds in its blood and seed the wisdom of generations…”

I could hear the desperation in his voice. The electrical control which activated the burner on his cleaning unit failed and we had nothing like it in stock. Unfortunately, the manufacturer was on the other side of the country.

Without much thought, I ordered the part next-day air to my location. The control went from California to Pennsylvania — a distance of nearly three-thousand miles — within twenty-four hours. The price? Only about $100.

What’s the big deal, right? This is just a normal part of life; nothing to see here. However, in the greater scheme of mankind, it’s a staggering display of our history and growth as a species. It’s a demonstration of the innate power of humanity itself.

In Fallen Leaves, his final book — completed in his nineties — historian Will Durant looks at our species throughout its existence. He might be the most uniquely qualified person in the world for this mission. This former philosophy teacher traveled the globe seeing events unfold in real time.

Not only writing history but living it and participating as an activist and observer.

He went from radical political beliefs to more conservative over his lifetime, trying to find a mix between freedom and authority in which all people of the world could benefit. He authored over thirty books during seventy years, varying from history, philosophy, and social issues.

In a way only a wise life-rich person can, he points out humanity has a power which no other animal on earth can harness — civilization. It creates immortality. Man and woman die, yet civilization carries on their ideas, pushing them, bending them, and stretching them forward.

Durant explains flight is a fundamental illustration of this power.

While we consider flight a modern invention, Durant finds a deeper relationship between the sky and mankind. He notes that three-thousand years ago, the Greeks told the story of Icarus. Although we misunderstand it greatly.

For instance, even calling it the story of “Icarus” is misplaced. We think it’s only a tale of hubris. A youth gets wings and ignores warnings from his wise father, flying too close to the sun, resulting in the wax fasteners melting and death. But it’s more a tale of an inventor.

The Greek inventor Daedalus fashions the wings for himself and his son. He gives his boy instruction — for flight and life. He’s quoted in Metamorphoses by Ovid as saying:

“Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you go too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes.”

Here’s where we get stuck. But in the greater story, Daedalus escapes his island prison. The wings work. Mankind creates his version of the air sails every bird is born with and conquers the final dimension of the sky.

Icarus is a bit player in the story, his father is the hero and focal point.

It’s mythology, I know — a made up story by a creative writer. But the idea is right there. Mankind looked at birds and thought to themselves: “We can do that.” Daedalus and the writers telling his story died, but civilization carried the idea onwards.

“Thirty generations passed and Leonardo Da Vinci, spirit made flesh, scratched across his drawings…plans and calculations for a flying machine, and left in his notes a little phrase, once heard rings like a bell in the memory: ‘there shall be wings.’”

Like the story of Icarus, we focus on a piece of Da Vinci, not the whole. His name conjures up the iconic images of the Mona Lisa, or Last Supper — paint, canvas, and art. Yet he was so much more.

Dr. Craig Wright in The Hidden Habits of Genius explains he combined his artistic abilities with a desire for knowledge of the structure of the human body. Consequently, he created anatomy sketches so detailed, modern doctors study them today.

Yet he also mixed his artistic skill with mathematics and engineering. Some of his many sketches were flying machines. While his version of a helicopter is impractical, his winged machines almost fly off the parchment.

But this wasn’t a passing passion for Da Vinci. As with any student, he studied the works of the master of the art — birds. In his Codex On The Flight of Birds, written in 1506, he devotes almost forty-thousand words and about five-hundred drawings to birds’ method of flight.

Some of these sketches are so staggeringly beautiful, they’ll drop your jaw to the floor. But it gets better. Toward the end, Da Vinci notes he’s making his own flying machine with wings, giving descriptions of the controls.

The Codex ends with this statement:

“It will make the first flight, being launched from the peak of Mount Cecero, this great bird, filling the universe with awe, filling all writings with its fame, and eternal glory to the nest where it was born.”

No telling what happened. The trail goes a bit cold from here, although one might imagine the test pilot wasn’t as successful as Daedalus. Otherwise, his name would be as famous as Da Vinci.

While there’s no proof the device shown above ever flew, Rate My Science recreated a simpler version of a glider designed by Da Vinci in 2008, taking it for a short test flight. As we all know the genius was mortal — dying in 1519 — yet his idea shared with Daedalus lived, carrying on through civilization.

While humanity got sidetracked over the years, flight was always an interest. Although some saw a future in balloons. In the early twentieth century, England even had the idea to link their empire by Zeppelin-like airships.

However, the echoes from civilization always brought the focus back to wings. This reached an epitome in the strangest of characters: two high school dropouts. Despite their lack of academic certificates, the Wright Brothers were geniuses.

In David McCullough’s book “The Wright Brothers, he notes the future fliers’ father didn’t care much if they went to school. As long as they were learning. And their teachers were the best that civilization could muster.

The older Wright kept a library of Dickens, Washington Irving, Hawthorne, Mark Twain, Sir Walter Scott, Virgil, Milton, and Plutarch to name a few. The boys likely also heard the story of Daedalus and tales of Da Vinci.

They were tinkerers, creating their own printing press and eventually starting a bicycle shop where they made their own units. Yet, stories of daredevils and gliders trapped their imaginations.

Their experience with bikes taught them controls would be the greatest aid in achieving flight. They decided to make their own glider. So, Wilbur Wright studied the master fliers of the day — birds. Sound familiar?

Wilbur, like Da Vinci noticed birds tilted the angle of the ends of their wings to turn. The Wrights figured out a way to do this mechanically. They incorporated this “wing-warping technology” into their glider.

Only after working out all the kinks with the glider and flight controls, did they pursue development of an engine and powered flight. This engine with an aluminum block produced a monstrous twelve horsepower, and just enough kick to lift a body off the ground under the right circumstances.

In 1903 to little fanfare, the Wright Flyer I lifted off the ground three times. Yet, three flights seem apropos. One for each thousand years mankind chased the idea of flight.

But it’s time to come back to earth. We need a final lesson from Will Durant about the world we see around us.

I often hear a continual refrain which saddens me. It’s this endless hatred expressed for mankind…by mankind. People cynically sneer at the world and populations around them. They sit themselves behind a judge’s gavel and deem all humanity wonting and unworthy.

But that seemingly drab $100 trip my package took in twenty-four hours blows that all to hell.

It’s more than a delivery. It’s Daedalus, Da Vinci, The Wright Brothers, and every nameless genius of civilization carrying on each other’s work endlessly. It’s immortality wrapped up in flight — an expression of the power of humanity’s technology of civilization hidden in every wing you see.

That’s not wonting. That’s not unworthy. It’s stellar and miraculous, and if you’re not seeing it, you’re not looking hard enough.

It’s Will Durant’s observation after seventy years of incredible work embedded in his words, “The individual is foolish, but life holds in its blood and seed the wisdom of generations.”

So, before you judge mankind wonting, put down your gavel. Look up at the sky, and study three-thousand years’ worth of civilization in action. Finally, remember Da Vinci’s words “there shall be wings.”

From the times that the pyramids were raised to the end of the cold war in this publication you will find it all. This is a publication that has been created to tell the stories of forgotten battles and fortunes that have crafted the world that we live in today.

Work out fanatic, martial artist, student, MBA, and connoisseur of useless information. CantWriteToSaveMyLife@yahoo.com