As long as you don’t make waves, ripples, life seems easy. But that’s condemning yourself to impotence and death before you are dead.
Jeanne Moreau
I am reading “The 100: A Ranking Of The Most Influential Persons In History” by Michael H. Hart. The title suggests everything. These 100 people most influenced our civilization, religion, culture, and technology. The ones that created the dent in the universe, the ones that created the strongest waves in the sea.
But most have faced failure, humiliation, disgust, outcast more than they had success. Jesus was crucified, Darwin was mocked.. and surprisingly even now. Each one faced it head on, and pursued the path they felt was right.. and in the end the world could not ignore them.
Failure is everywhere, we all face it, and its a pity that some of us choose to let go, and let failure overtake our perseverance. I remember as a child being told of Thomas Edison who failed many times (each time the story would get more dramatic, from 40 failed attempts, to 100 and then 1000s) but finally managed to make the common electric bulb. And he was bold enough to say “We will make electricity so cheap that only the rich will burn candles”. Perhaps too bold a statement? Well you must have heard the Latin proverb which says “Fortes fortuna adiuvat” which translates to “Fortune favors the bold”.
In the end the idea is not that everyone can be a universe dent maker.. No.. we all have our limitations, some have more, some less, and we all will make our dents, some wont affect our world, some would.. but in the end I can best summarize from a scene from Ratatouille towards the end of the movie where Anton Ego writes
In the past, I have made no secret of my disdain for Chef Gusteau’s famous motto: Anyone can cook. But I realize, only now do I truly understand what he meant. Not everyone can become a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere.
So friend, make your wave.. (I tried literally making waves at Morjim beach the other weekend, but jumped right out after I noticed I was surrounded by Jelly fishes. In my defense, it would be like the woodcutter cutting the branch he was sitting on if I had continued.)
BTW I was surprised to see Prophet Muhammad in the number one spot in the book I mentioned above, and was wondering if the author will be involved in a big controversy, but as one reads on, the author gives sensible reasoning for each spot.
This image was clicked at my favorite place Morjim, just at sunset. You can see the sun as a small blip of orange on the horizon a bit to the left. Its a bit tricky to get the wave ripples sharp, since it moves so fast, and the lighting conditions were bad. But after a few shots, I got the one I liked.