I watch a lot of TED Talks and over a period of time I started aspiring to give one myself. That is the inspiration behind this TED-Like Talk too.
This is also a follow-up experiment on the book “The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking.”
My talk today will explore the subject of ‘Lone Dreamers with Unique Visions.’
As Sheldon Cooper of the iconic show The Big Bang Theory says, “Comic Cons too once never existed until one lone dreamer with a unique vision made it happen.”
Now let me ask you a question along similar lines, who is a hero? Who can be a hero?
As imaginable, our mental cue would now point towards one of the Avengers or The DC pack of heroes, their lot. However, this doesn’t concern superheroes who act as heroes with superpowers in motion pictures and comics.
What if we turn the other way and look at the life around us wherein, we could spot the perpetual heroism of pioneers and trailblazers for real. From industrialists and technologists to perfumers and content creators. They are our original heroes, aren’t they? Their solid championship keeps the planet running still. The singular idea from the mind of an individual as Isaac Newton showed us to the concept of Gravity, a predefined aspect of nature we came with.
In my opinion, it is the collective effort of every luminary, avant-garde, lodestar, ground-breaking, revolutionary, neoteric individual out there that holds us in our places on this planet. Imagine, otherwise our life expectancy is sure to have been shot down into the ground of preindustrial soil.
Without our fictional heroes too we have nowhere to be. Whether it’s Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happyness, Matthew McConaughey in Interstellar or Jennifer Lawrence in Joy. They are all the same people in that they stay put in their stead as a follower of their dream. They carry on through a course of trials & tribulations much harder than it is for the rest of the world. In doing so, they show the world what glory it is to lead the world forward even in the infinitesimal way they do.
In fact, the most diligent trait of theirs is their grit- the strength of their will to conquer that ordeal which is keeping them off their destination by only the shortest distance of the last step forward. This is best portrayed by Jaden Smith in The Karate Kid when he says during the climax, “I am still scared and no matter what happens tonight, when I leave, I don’t want to be scared anymore.”
A typical storyline of such heroes instructs us that they realize early on in life that they hold in them a virtue that is unavailable to people seen around them. Starting then, their lives mostly alternate between the good and bad of carrying such virtue in them. In special instances of viewing the world as much more than what it is made out to be, they sense a greater purpose set out for them. But more often than not they are caught in the crossroads of loneliness and uncertainty of living the exclusive life of a ‘lone dreamer with a unique vision’.
They have a lot of misgivings about their own future for fear of failure. Or even disbelief in being the sole licensee of their unique vision. On some occasions they come close to even quitting on their dreams for the inexplicability of leading a life of private wonder and imagination but a tough realization index.
The resultant gloom subsumes the hero for a period of life until they resurrect themselves through the sheer aggression of wanting to break out of a purposeless stagnation which is not in their original nature. Take any case in the history of heroes: Princess Diana, Ru Paul, Walt Disney, Jeanne D’Arc, Alfred Nobel, Ludwig Van Beethoven, Marie Curie or Kathryn Bigelow- the first female awardee of Oscar in the director’s category.
Let me invite an imaginary guest to support my idea. Mike Wazowski is a common figure of Disney species, if you agree. He went to the Monsters University which is the equivalent of an ivy league university of our higher education system. He went on to work for the Monster Inc. which would be the same as an esteemed governmental organization of ours.
Now success wasn’t readily definite for a self-standing personality as Mike Wazowski. He had to fight for his case well beyond having established himself as a studious candidate. He fought the system head on over their narrow perception whilst taking under his wing his indifferent contemporary, James P Sullivan. Eventually he made his own mark by breaking into a new market that shook down the former wealthy one.
Every one of them– prophets, titans, specialists, planters, reformers, advocates, humanitarians, even butt sculptors for celebrities- they make it happen. Lone dreamers with unique visions always come through considering every Emmy-winning show, Oscar-winning film, Grammy-winning artist and Nobel-winning scientist there is.
Hence, I believe that the capability is mutual. It applies to every other person as well. By the extension of the consensus that every one of us latent with a potential waiting to be awakened by a vision or a goal.
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