Sunday, March 29, 2009

If its not absurd It aint survive

If at first the idea is not absurd, there is no hope for it.
~Albert Einstein

Why would he have said this. This is such a profound statement.Everything around us must have been absurd at some point of time:


When the men living in the open or in caves started living in Houses, would it have been taboo for his fellow tribesmen?
when the first fire was lit, would people have been open to accept it?
The clothes that we wear must have been absurd too at some point of time when Men gave up hide and skins for fabric clothes. Indeed, fashion starts from bordering on absurdity till it becomes normative and widely accepted.
Peace, Equality and Piety might have been considered absurd in large parts of the world till one man appeared who was so absurd in that point of time that he had to be crucified.
For something as fundamental as Electricity Benjamin Franklin had to answer a curious Prime minister about the usefulness of his device thus: 'someday it might be taxed'.
When Graham Bell tried to sell patent to his invention of Telephone to Western Union, the President of Western Union said that Telephone was just a toy.
When Galileo invented the Telescope and put forward the theory of a Sun centered universe, his discovery was considered so absurd that he had to be put in jail.
Darwin's theory of evolution and his preposition that Humans have evolved from Monkeys was considered completely absurd at the beginning.
Railways and Cars were frightening boxes of steel at one point which could and indeed did any time devour the passers by.
The idea itself of aerial navigation was considered absurd till the Wright brothers invented aeroplane.
Computer was an enormous absurdity at the beginning and the CEO of IBM said that there maybe a market for 4 computers in the world.
Both Typewriters and Computers were opposed for many years for fears it might result in unemployment.For that matter, all machinery has been considered evil so much so that people like Gandhi denounced it lock stock and barrel.

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