Something I decided to write on twitter this morning, brought to mind one of my earliest blog entry ideas… about groundbreaking ideas.
I wanted to talk more about a person that comes up with the groundbreaking thought or idea after someone else. It is one of those little things you come to notice in life… that you can think up the exact same idea in your own mind, but you are still kind of seen as less smart by society. If someone comes up with an idea or thought already said or done before, that is all we say, that is already been done or said before. But, we don’t take the little moment, to realize that the individual thought up that same groundbreaking idea on their own… they are basically just as smart, they just were a little late to the party is all.
It is interesting the way history looks at the same principle, we right off the people that follow. If someone invented an airplane in America, and another team of people did it on the other side of the world with no prior knowledge, we would only ever hear about the first person. Not that, that is a horrible thing. I am just making an observation, but sometimes we write ourselves off in the same way, we may come up with an idea only to see it already done, but you should take a moment to realize that you were smart enough to come up with the idea on your own.
Which, brings me to another interesting feeling, when something clicks, and we fully understand something. Everything becomes clear and we have such a moment of clarity. Whether trying to understand math, economics, engineering, or some concept we have been thinking about… We get that feeling of discovery, it is when we don’t just believe something because somebody we trust told us, we understand it for ourselves, it is a great feeling. Makes you feel like you invented it a bit, because you did all the work and logic in your head.
(Schizophrenic Thought?) For instance, I think everyone really likes my economics book, Perfect Capitalism Manifesto, but what I think makes it particularly popular, is it gives the paths of logic to discover it for yourself, you don’t just trust me because I said I am smart and I came up with this idea, you did all the thinking yourself and believe and know it for yourself. I try and do that with most things, try to present a path of logic to discover things for yourself. I don’t ever say, just trust me, I try to deliver it in a way of self-discovery and trusting yourself. Which can also lead to enlightenment and self-awareness.
I don’t know as though there is a specific point or lesson to this blog post today, just more an observation. An observation that a person that discovers or invents something without prior knowledge is also showing something exceptional. That not being first, shouldn’t knock you down too such a great extent. Probably in part it is a societal effort to preemptively fight possible frauds or false claims by people that say they invented something when they just copy or stole it… A bit of a false prophet type deal… But, you know in your heart if you discovered something without prior knowledge!
I also think it is something special to even follow paths of logic and discover and know something for ourselves as well.
This all brought up some other thoughts about how most of what we think and know is based off of logical assumptions… but I will save that for another day!
theeclecticschizophrenic.com 