While reading Zero to One by Peter Thiel, I encountered this idea that the world is, again, flat. No, not physically but intellectually.
What more could possibly be undiscovered out there when we have already gone to the moon and back? When we have already uncovered secrets of nature that we only hoped to know in our wildest dreams?
And it all trickles down to business and employment. Why would someone hire me when someone out there is better, more qualified and has been ‘there and done that’? What else could I make that has never been made before? Why should I start up a company when all that people need are already in existence?
These thoughts may seem distant right now but deep down inside, people feel it. And even once in your life, you may have taken on this mindset. It’s not easy to shrug off. It sticks.
And so a lot of people forgo even trying to think of ideas that could change and shape the future. People tend to just ‘blend in’ and find work in the best possible companies they could get into – however relative they perceive their qualifications to be.
It’s such a sad thing to know that this thinking has penetrated our innermost being as a society. However there are still some adventurers out there – some daredevils who have the guts to prove that not everything has been uncovered and invented. These people are the ones who will shape the future as we know it. Mostly through technology.
They will be the ones to create something out of nothing. They will be the ones who will improve the lives and hopes of people. They may even be the ones who will make a way to preserve our battered planet.
They will be the ones who will prove that the world is indeed round.
