Skip to main content

 

Start a Huge Foolish Project

Richard Branson sent his first commercial rocket to space in July this year. His philosophy is: “If people aren’t calling you crazy, you aren’t thinking big enough.” Certainly a crazy idea when the world is reeling from a pandemic and economic difficulties. However, the big idea was not the rocket ‘Unity’, hurtling into space, but the first person who imagined space travel. While many early civilizations speculated on what lies beyond the stars, modern space developments were inspired by a French fiction writer Jules Verne who wrote From the Earth to the Moon in 1865 and Around the Moon in 1869.

Jules Verne, who wrote over 100 novels, was no stranger to huge ideas many would consider foolish, but which inspired engineers, inventors and technicians. ‘Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea,’ suggested a prototype for submarines. “Around the World in Eighty Days” inspired adventure travelers and the Siberian Express train. “Journey to the Center of the Earth” has yet to become a reality. “Robur the Conqueror” features a helicopter, “The Carpathian Castle” describes holograms. He was a visionary in the true sense of the word.

When Jalaluddin Rumi urges us to “Start a huge foolish project” he gives the example of Noah’s Ark. One has to wonder at the strong convictions of the Prophets when they began their missions. How did Prophet Moses convince the Israelites to leave Egypt? How did the Prophet Jesus inspire his small group of Disciples to carry on his message  after he was gone? Prophet Muhammad ( PBUH)  envisioned the spread of Islam when he set off on the Hijrah with a handful of people. Buddha’s first five disciples left him in disappointment when he abandoned starvation for a more moderate meditation, yet he was undeterred.

In the 9th C , 65 year old Ibn Firnas jumped off a cliff from Yemen's Jabal Al-Arus mountain and glided in the air, staying in flight for ten minutes, not knowing that centuries later air travel would be commonplace.  

Like Jules Verne, Nikolai Tesla had an unbounded imagination.  Inventor of alternating current electricity, the radio, wireless energy, remote controlled boats and a dizzying array of inventions faced ridicule and lack of funding, yet his inventions are widely used today. His aim was to ensure free electricity and easy communication for the world and he devised many proposals  to end all wars.

In 1920 Mahatma Gandhi developed a new form of protest – the  non-cooperation movement, instead of the usual armed rebellion. The idea inspired the Anti War Movement of the 60s that ended the Vietnam war, and every peaceful citizens’ protest since. . 

Tarana Burke came up with the phrase Me Too in 2006 for women to share their experiences which grew into a global movement a decade later.  The invention of anaesthesia, penicillin, vaccinations, stem cell therapy, organ transplants , the printing press, the worldwide web are all testimony to the power of the fearless visionary.    

An Irish pop singer, Bob Geldof,  raised £150 million for  the Ethopian famine relief by organizing a rock concert, Live Aid, in 1985. The neurologist Dr. Ludwig Guttmann, came up with the idea of Paraolympics in 1928, today the second biggest sporting event in the world.  Britain’s Open University introduced  distance learning in 1969, an indispensable  teaching system today. The hand held mobile developed in the 70s is today used by 85% of the world population and has revolutionized access in the poorest countries.

Even very ordinary individuals can make history. Captain Tom Moore at the age of 99, announced  he would walk 100 lengths with his walker to raise funds for UK’s National Health Service charities during the Covid epidemic. By his 100th birthday he had raised £39 million instead of the £1000 he hoped for.

As Allama Iqbal writes: 

Jab Ishq sikhata hai aadab e khudmukhtari

Khultay hain ghulamo par asrar e shehenshahi

(When passion teaches the way to self-reliance

The slave is free to become a king )

 

 

Durriya Kazi

August 1, 2021

durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Decorated Trucks of Pakistan

International Institute for Asian Studies / Association for Asian Studies / Asia Committee, European Science Foundation First International Convention of Asia Scholars Leeuenhorst Conference Centre, Noordwijkerhout , Netherlands , 25-28 June, 1998 Panel: “ Shaking the Tree: New Approaches to Asian Art” / Session: Decorated Transport Decorated Trucks of Pakistan Durriya Kazi June 1998. Karachi Meaning is always in process, what has been called “a momentary stop in a continuing flow of interpretations of interpretations”. This paper pauses at some facts and some observations about decorated trucks of Pakistan , a subject that has elicited tantalisingly few studies. Pakistan is often presented geographically and thus historically as the corridor of land between the mountain passes that separated the near East from the plains of India . Less mentioned and more significant is its identity as the valley of the River Indus which has historically ...
Post a Comment
Read more
  How Much is Enough? Most discussions about what is considered ‘enough’ centre around money and power. To be the most powerful, the wealthiest or the most famous, once the desire of mighty kings and despots, has now filtered down in modern societies, with rags to riches stories becoming commonplace. However, the modern world is increasingly characterised by insatiability, an inability to say “enough is enough”, and an insatiable desire for more money or power. Enough means having enough to live, enough to be happy, and enough to thrive. So how does one arrive at what is enough? Enough is not a number. Individuals have their own measure of enough. The wise know what that limit is, for others, society’s limiting systems — legal or moral — determine when enough is enough. King Ashoka won a battle against the Kalinga kingdom, with 100,000 deaths and even more taken captive. That was his ‘enough’. Appalled by his own ruthlessness, Ashoka became a Buddhist, dedicated to spreading th...
Post a Comment
Read more
  ‘o Travelling Together or Going Our Separate Ways We live, and have lived for centuries, in a politically and economically divided world.   Unable to accept these differences, there is always one group that takes the further step of dominating another. The most direct way is for a stronger group to take over a weaker group by sheer force. Where the two forces are equally matched, subterfuge, divide et imperia – divide and rule, is effective. Sometimes all it takes is cultural seduction. Something as innocuous as blue jeans became an important symbol of the Free West during the Cold War. Bruce Springsteen told the East Berlin youth in a July 1988 concert “I’m not here for any government. I’ve come to play rock ‘n’ roll for you in the hope that one day all the barriers will be torn down.”   History books are filled with the constant constructing and dismantling of alliances, based on the perceived enemy of the moment. All the great wars in Europe, India and China ...
Post a Comment
Read more