How is it going, in regard tobecoming who you're meant to be?

"If you stroll through a large art museum, you will notice that Van Gogh does not paint the same world as Rembrandt, Picasso does not see things the way Goya did, Georgia O'Keeffe doesn't much resemble Rivera, Salvador Dali looks like nobody but himself, and, in general, no world-class artist became a 'classic' by doing what somebody else had already done or even what everybody else in his or her own era did.

"And in science, the names of Einstein, Dirac, the Curies, Bohr, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, John Bell et cetera live on because none of them took Newton as The Holy Gospel. They all made unique and unpredictable innovations in basic theory [which is all that modern science is: theory, or research and results that seem to prove theories -- Ed.].

"In case you think this applies only to 'arts and sciences,' consider some of the most successful people in industry. Henry Ford did not get rich copying Fulton's steamboat. He made a car so cheap that anybody could afford one. Howard Hughes produced movies that nobody else would have dared to back, and then went on to revolutionize the airline industry. Buckminster Fuller did not copy the cubical form of previous architects, but invented the geodesic dome. At last count, over 3OO,OOO of his buildings existed, making him the most visibly successful architect in history. Steve Wozniak did not copy the computers of his day, but invented one that even an 'bloody eejit' [like me] could use [and even enjoy]. Bill Gates created new kinds of software [and if I remember correctly, he dropped out of college -- Ed.].

"We all need constant reiteration of these truism because we live in a world where a multitude of very powerful forces have worked upon us, from birth through school to work, attempting to suppress our individuality, our creativity and, above all, our curiosity -- in short, to destroy everything that encourages us to think for ourselves."

From "Becoming What You Are,"
by Robert Anton Wilson