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Anything is Possible to Those Who Will Try

Writer's picture: HyperspaceHyperspace

Updated: Sep 10, 2023

Knowledge is like a torch.* We live in it’s circle of light and pass it down, from generation to generation. And with each generation we take another step out from where we began, pushing the curtain of darkness that surrounds us back a little farther.


To live in the light is comfortable and safe. It's a space is full of devices that make our every day life easy, like toasters and cars. To most of us these devices are almost magical, but the knowledge to build them has been hard-won by generations of inventors and business people. We owe our comforts to the torch bearers who stand at the edge of our circle of light, fighting to press back the dark.


Their fight is not easy. For every thing we have learned or built there were critics who said it was impossible. These critics told sailors not to explore too far or they’d fall off the edge of the world. They told pilots that no plane could go faster than the speed of sound without being destroyed. They told astronauts that they would die if they went into space. Again and again we prove them wrong, and again and again they find something new to criticize. Today you hear them critiquing modern torch bearers like Elon Musk, saying Tesla and SpaceX are doomed to fail.


The critics are not entirely wrong, because for each of these innovations we have indeed paid a cost, both in financial terms and often in human lives. However, what they don’t understand is that no single failure matters. Failures are stumbles in our progress towards success. Just as no child learns to walk without stumbling, nothing new is ever achieved without failing. Each failure is a lesson, as Thomas Edison exemplified in his famous quote:

“I haven't failed - I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

The only true failure would be to listen to the critics and stop striving, because then we doom ourselves to live in a darkness of complacency and fear.


Here at Hyperspace, we choose to be torch bearers. It is not easy, because even when we ignore the critics we still have to deal with the reality that we spend the vast majority of our time struggling and screwing up, all for the chance at a fleeting moment of success. So take a moment here to pause and reflect. If what you want most is an easy, comfortable life, then this is no place for you. Go home and be grateful for your magic toaster. If, however, you know that as hard as this is, it is also worth it, then you are one of us.


As individuals, the struggles we face make us stronger. As members of larger communities, when we achieve success it gives us the opportunity to improve not just our own lives but all of society. So we must keep going. We know from experience how hard this is. We also that ultimately we will succeed. Again, in the words of Edison,

“When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this - you haven't.”



*We’ve taken this apt metaphor from Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey, which if you haven’t seen you should stop reading this right now and go watch. It might surprise you to have business people advocating for watching a spacetime odyssey, but a scientific mindset is essential to anyone who wishes to do well in the business world. It is also essential to keep perspective of our scale. The greatest among us are minute on a cosmic scale, and death comes for the wealthy and famous just as surely as for the poor and anonymous.

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