Icarus Falling or Self-Awareness Rising?

I ask a lot of my life, of my body and of my brain and perhaps finally that's the reason for the fracture of my fragile mind: that I have simply asked too much of it, for too long.   With my performance in education I might have reasonably expected to be a postman, or a security guard or some other, hourly-paid, low status job.   Instead I found myself on the conveyor belt of the rat race, fancying that I am better than I am and my soul long living beyond its means either in educational or in career terms.   Either way, looking at the faces of the people tonight in Oxford Street, on the Central line and pushing their way through the maze of tunnels that make up Bank station I'm increasingly coming to the conclusion that the one thing I don't want is to be older.   I'm at an age (40) when I should be settled in my career, not needing to worry about the attitudes and opinions of others (I have more experience in the  field than anyone else in the company, including Giles, the CEO) and yet ... I am given to believe by my colleagues that my work and my output are thoroughly meaningless and my contribution to the  whole of the business is no more than nuisance value, that I exist on sufferance and as a favour to a former colleague. For what it's worth, I already know my zero contribution to the lives of those around me.   I know that I should not treat such perceived sleights with anything other than contempt and yet, and yet - they feel SO personal.   Example: I sent a long summary of my research work on affordability yesterday to the senior team: the reaction of the CEO was lukewarm / positive (he's on leave currently) but that of his Sales Director was to ask if the purpose of affordability was to reduce risk or to increase acceptance rates: my answer of "both" was met with a snort of derision. No-one else has commented, thus far.   Maybe I need to get out? Maybe I need to relax my mind and my soul and get out. The Box is tempting me so much, so, so very much to open it and to at least consider its content but it doesn't know that I have been considering it and its content for months. At times it becomes a constant struggle to not go to The Box, grab its contents, and GO.   But - and here comes the circular argument, again - opening The Box to do anything but examine its contents would be an act of the utmost selfishness, an act of incivility to those around me who, whilst momentarily saddened by my passage to decomposition and fertilisation of the ground - ashes to ashes, dust to dust - would go on without a care in the world and I become a footnote in peoples lives, the weirdo that people knew for a while who had great entertainment value but beyond that ... not much.  To those whose lives I touched: I apologise. Whether you saw me at my best or at my worst, my highest or my lowest, I apologise for the waste of time, the waste of effort and the waste of love. I would assure you that it wasn't wasted, but you wouldn't believe me.   If I knew the real me, I could have made introductions and who knows, it could have worked out well - but I doubt it. You have been too good for me, far better than I have deserved and in return I have been a charlatan, an imposter, a spy in the house of love.   I am coming to the conclusion that I might be Icarus: I flew too close to the sun, burned and continue to burn as a consequence.