Taking a Break On the Moon

I still have a long way to go as a writer. 

Sitting on the throne at work I noticed the toilet paper roll had been changed. I knew it wasn’t me. Looking at the floor I saw a lone hair and thought that’s who must’ve done it. I chuckled. 

I began to think of how great a leap it is from not solving anything on the throne to the advancement of dna research; the capture of violent offenders through dna analysis; the discovery of rare diseases through dna sequencing; Crispr and gene editing.

It is a great big world with people that are at the top of their field in every discipline. They didn’t get there by staying on the throne. They first solved simple problems they encountered and moved on to greater problems introduced by people further along in that field. They went back to work. 

There is no humility in discovering greatness in unlikely places, especially when it is a place where everyone goes. 

We can look at the moon every night and know that people have set foot on it. It wasn’t a giant leap for one man. It was an extremely challenging undertaking by top scientists, engineers, and aviators of the time. It took an army of people to get there. Every great discovery starts with the courage to accept that we are not the only ones who got us there.

The same goes with writing. I may only be as good at writing as I am at forensics compared to the greatest who ever put pen to paper but I do know this: every writer looks at the same moon and none of them started their story on top of the throne.