Pioneers rarely get to be viewed as pioneers as they are pioneering. There is safety and comfort in the familiar, and reflex recoil all around those challenging established norms, so “different’’ doesn’t morph into “pioneering’’ until after it has succeeded, with the clarity of retrospect — when it is easy, in other words, for everyone to see what the pioneer first saw.
Van Gogh died poor, having sold very few paintings while he was alive. That dumb guy once fired by a newspaper for lack of ideas and imagination? Walt Disney. The student one teacher called “hopeless as a composer?’’ Beethoven. The guy who went broke five times before cashing in? Henry Ford. The list of people who were mocked and called crazy for their original ideas stretches from Columbus to Einstein to, well, LeBron James.
Van Gogh died poor, having sold very few paintings while he was alive. That dumb guy once fired by a newspaper for lack of ideas and imagination? Walt Disney. The student one teacher called “hopeless as a composer?’’ Beethoven. The guy who went broke five times before cashing in? Henry Ford. The list of people who were mocked and called crazy for their original ideas stretches from Columbus to Einstein to, well, LeBron James.
