Bird's Eye View of History

Written from the plane on July 6, 2008

I sit here on an airplane on my way back from Connecticut, high above white clouds, and thousands of miles away from civilization. I take a look down below, with the wing of the plane in my peripheral, and ponder the pioneers of innovation in my head. Have you ever seen the movie Aviator about the life of Howard Hughes? Or taken a trip to the Orville and Wilbur Wright Memorial? Yes, those guys gave me the astonishingly beautiful bird's eye view from up here.

But as I think of them I can't help but to advance further back in time to people who produced the materials to help them even build such a structure. Or even further. The ones who constructed governments and gave us an organized way of maintaining trade and commerce to obtain such materials. And then further to the world renowned navigators who explored distant lands and brought civilization together, which enabled us to make such exchanges.

Absolutely fascinating. These men and women have lived in the same world as all of us, only at different times. They have breathed this air, walked this ground, and have dreamed upon the same stars that we dream. To think that I could have been alive at the time of Ferdinand Magellan, William Shakespeare, Marie Curie, George Washington, Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, Augustus Caesar, or Benjamin Franklin? They all have impacted this earth with either their oration, their innovation, their thoughts, their intelligence, their dedication, or their dignity. And that leaves me asking myself what am I going to do to give humanity a gift as wonderful as they did? How can I have such an impact? I love the endless possibilities in the future and I respect all those before me.