Sunday, September 18, 2011

Edison

I bought my first LED lightbulb today. Billed as long-lasting, energy-efficient, eco-friendly, and more pleasant on the eyes than CFLs, it doesn't take a huge leap in thought to see these as part of a "wave of the future" that is going on all around us. It's 2011, after all - maybe soon we'll be seeing flying skateboards and big-screen videophones on the walls, too. But this wave is no accident, despite having been prophecized for quite a while. It is the result of a lot of hard work done by a lot of super-smart people with often-times crazy work ethics.

The lightbulb has come a long way since first being made practical in 1879. Legend has it that Edison created several thousand prototypes before finally arriving at his finished designed, and only slept a couple of hours each day as he worked on these, presumably through a polyphasic sleep schedule. I don't know how true these are, and really don't like to be using history to justify present actions; however, the context in which I hear these statements is usually in regard to being extraordinary. If this legendary Edison were alive today, he'd be considered a bona-fide weirdo, and probably be laughing all the way to the bank (perhaps literally )

To be extraordinary, one must have the courage to not be ordinary - for that is the very definition of extraordinary. One must be able to not sweat the stares and quips about one's so-called "odd" behavior. If what you're doing works for you, then damn "ordinary" all to hell. One must have the courage and ability to fail - over and over, relentlessly, until, eventually, one reaches their goal. Because while the journey is certainly more important for one's personal development, it is the destination, the result, that everyone else will remember and aggregate into history.



"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward." -Thomas Edison

"He had no hobby, cared for no sort of amusement of any kind and lived in utter disregard of the most elementary rules of hygiene. [...] His method was inefficient in the extreme, for an immense ground had to be covered to get anything at all unless blind chance intervened and, at first, I was almost a sorry witness of his doings, knowing that just a little theory and calculation would have saved him 90% of the labour. But he had a veritable contempt for book learning and mathematical knowledge, trusting himself entirely to his inventor's instinct and practical American sense." —Nikola Tesla, on Thomas Edison

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