A Toast … To The Explorers and Pioneers!
by Stephen L Doherty
June 25th, 2023
“History doesn’t mean dates and wars and textbooks to me; it means
the unconquerable pioneer spirit of man! – Henry Ford
Everything that means anything in our modern lives came at a price … and that price was often death and disaster! There’s an old saying, “The pioneers get the arrows, and the settlers get the land.” So true. How many early planes and trains crashed until we got it right? How many manned rockets have exploded just in our lifetime? How many ships and submarines sank before we mastered that engineering? How much carnage have we endured, even in modern times, from automobile defects and ongoing engineering challenges?
Electricity? Medicines? Education? Civil rights and societal development? Anything and everything we hold dear – came at a cost. The enduring miracle of mankind is the ongoing courage of those willing to pay that price on behalf of the rest.
Yet, our memories seem unbearably short when judging current events absent that context. Recently, a submersible submarine with five passengers – exploring the wreckage of the Titanic, suffered a catastrophic hull failure that destroyed the craft and all aboard. The collective global media, that had been obsessing over the mystery prior to the tragedy – suddenly turned on the dead passengers for every imaginable reason.
The armchair warriors and the rear-view mirror strategists were in full-throated criticism of everyone, and everything involved. Nowhere was there commentary on brave citizens engaged in a dangerous exploration that only a few individuals before them had ever attempted. Nowhere was there reference to this being another invoice paid by daring and brave pioneers exploring the ocean floor at ungodly depths.
Friends of mine have recently suggested that this degree of infantile, ignorant, and cowardly commentary on something we used to celebrate – is a sign of cultural decay and societal apathy and selfishness on a grand scale. I have a different take.
If past societies and cultures had the ability to provide everyone of any era with their own customized megaphone and the means of communicating globally? We no doubt would have seen Columbus, Armstrong, Edison, Ford, Magellan and Lewis & Clark, and all of the great explorers and pioneers – pilloried by the cowardly and the indifferent and the useless. The “miracle” of modern times is the ability to magnify the petty and insignificant voices of detraction into the illusion of something meaningful and purposeful. It truly is cultural sorcery equivalent to the Wizard’s deceptive machination s behind the curtain.
Me? I am forever grateful and mesmerized by people willing to consider the impossible and pursue it with dogged ferocity. Our lives and, more importantly, our happiness – is greatly defined by the degree of risk and difficulty inherent in the challenges we undertake. More importantly, we should be forever grateful and appreciative of the men and women whose appetites and capacity for risk and danger exceeded our own.
The forever attraction of the pioneers and explorers should be obvious to anyone with a brain. Nothing of value – ever – is attained or accomplished without significant risk and danger. That mantra has forever driven the greatness of mankind and is the reason we don’t still live in caves and eat raw meat because the intricacies of fire were too scary.
Thanks to the courageous adventures and pursuits by people like Lewis and Clark – the rest of us, even if only through Walter Mitty eyeglasses, get to go along for the ride. God bless the pioneer and explorer … in all of us.
“Courage is rightly considered the foremost of the virtues,
for upon it all others depend.” – Winston Churchill
