Ludwig van Beethoven
When I was a kid I heard this marvelous story of Ludwig Van Beethoven, a great musician. From my music teacher. She said, he was a great composer of music, and at some point, he went into a room, behind closed doors he mastered his craft and after five years he came out of that room as the greatest musician of his time. It was a little success story which was in the back of my mind for years, and just the other day I checked the facts. And it seemed true. After initial recognition as a novel musician, He had indeed had a gap in his career where he mastered the craft, alone. Nothing productive has come out of this period. No followers, no recognition, like vanished years. And this pattern is not uncommon. From time to time, we see these surprising comebacks. What happens?
Shooting bamboo hypothesis
Bamboo is one of the fastest growing plants in the world. Some fastest growing species have grown 90cm in 24 hours. But the fascinating fact is not its growth. But what you see on the surface is not what happens in the ground. They bamboo shoots spend years and years underground developing new root system, before they show any visible growth above the ground. And this can go on up to five years! So, in fact the rapid growth that we see, in a matter of days is not the full story. It is the outcome of a great foundation which it creates below the ground. This is the famous shooting bamboo hypothesis.
We can compare the bamboo growth to the creativity, and many successful stories. Consider Usain Bolt. One of the greatest athletes of the 21st century. The total amount of time he has spent running actual race would be 50seconds. He has raced total only about one minute all his great career. But that is not the true story. I am sure, he has spent countless hours training himself, pushing his own boundaries, before he was able to race against similar hard-working athletes.
Overnight success.
Overnight success is just hypothetical. Unless you have a wealthy uncle, who is about to die of cancer. Yet often we see some people becoming successful overnight. They might even come in front of a crowd and boast about how they became a hero from zero, within one week. But the truth is far from this. Even the shooting bamboos are evidence of this. Overnight success is just the result of countless hours of experimenting. Maybe even not you, maybe it is generations of enthusiastic human beings. Imagine the Nobel prize. For that matter in any field. Do you think the one who wins the Nobel prize for physics next year would do that if Newton never thought about falling apples and gravity? We build upon our ancestors. Whether we liked it or not. So, the any man's or women's success is not isolated achievement. It should be considered an achievement of the entire human race.
So, my advice is playing your part, grow your roots, it doesn't matter even if takes years. Colonel sanders invented KFC when he was at the age of 62. But he had developed better roots. And when you become successful be humble and thankful to the earth, water and air and generations of earthworms who made the ground a fertile soil for us to flourish.
If it weren’t for Charles Babbage I might not be reading your blog on my phone today.