Of Pioneers and Pariahs

Ever notice how all the true innovation, new theory, new thought, even new renaissances are ALL made by pioneers? Really. People who are willing to push or outright ignore boundaries and blaze new trails and cover new ground into unexplored territory.

Ever notice how they are always branded as weird, kooks, heretics and blasphemers, nuts, ridiculed, discouraged, or sometimes even exiled or ostracized until they come back with the fruits of their hard work and accomplished glory?

All these trail-blazers are always told at the outset that “this is this and that is that because of what we know.” Really? Well how do we know this? Oddly enough, the work of the great pioneers who blazed the field of whatever the subject matter being touched on up to this point in time is cited. Well, what was there BEFORE those pioneers dared to go against the flow?

Nothing.

Nothing, really?

That's right, nothing. They were being told, just as you are now, to stick to the already covered ground, the safe territory, the known territory, and being told that THEY were crazy nuts for wanting to push beyond that. They ignored these admonishments, of course.

Has anyone ever stopped to notice this pattern?

Only AFTER a pioneer has blazed the trail - be it discovering new lands, or new science, or new philosophy - and knocked down those “threatened” folks who rise up to challenge them for what they're doing, do ANY of the masses follow.

Now it's safe, now the way is clear, now it's made doctrine, and the pattern begins all over again.

Calvin was initially branded a heretic for starting the Reformation movement, and now we have Protestants.

Einstein never had a degree, and yet he's cited as one of the greatest scientific minds to have ever lived.

Benjamin Franklin was chided for his “blasphemy” when he invented the lightning rod.

And had the American Revolution not succeeded, every last man in the Continental Congress that founded the country now known as the United States of America would have been hanged as traitors to their king.

Being a pioneer is lonely and dangerous. Yet nothing in this world moves or progresses without them. 

You'd think we'd all learn by now to trust in that, instead of repeating history like the machine-cogs in a music box, playing the same tune over and over again.