Jim Smith had always been convinced of his own brilliance. It was his guiding light, the thing that illuminated the path for him to follow, the constant spotlight in which he shone. It was the most natural thing in the world that he would excel at whatever he chose to do, and happily for the world, he had decided to become an inventor. The world did not know to thank him for this yet, but it would, oh it would.
The question now, was what to invent.
Jim took a long, happy breath and considered his options. His computer sat in front of him, glowing expectantly, awaiting the brilliance it was to receive. The desk lamp shone over him, a beneficent angel of inspiration, and the whole of his brand new lab, paid for with credit cards he would obviously have no problem paying back, radiated with possibilities.
His fingers hovered.
Yes, where to start. Where to start when you could start anywhere, what to do when anything was possible. The magnificent freedom and terrifying pressure of the blank page; almost oppressively blank, heavy with so much unrealised potential.
It was a simple question of focus, Jim reminded himself. What needed his attention most? What was most worthy of his talents? Something heroic, something grandiose, something that saved lives, even. That was unarguably worthy, wasn’t it? OK, good, he’d begin with the health industry. Design a new form of remote surgery perhaps: tiny robotic physicians that could be programmed to repair injuries and be injected directly into the blood. Or some kind of computerised scanning system maybe, something that could diagnose and prescribe treatment for any, or all, of the world’s most deadly diseases – Robot Doc – that had a ring to it, children cheering, an old woman with a tear in her eye, “Thank you Jim Smith, you saved our lives….”
Although… Really… At the end of the day… So what? So you save a few lives, make an old lady happy, but you had to admit, it was a little like fighting a really long, losing battle. Short of discovering immortality you were always just prolonging the inevitable, weren’t you? And there were too many damn people on the planet anyway. OK, not health, so what about energy? Power. Think ahead to fuel shortages as the oil reserves run low, bloody squabbles over the last of the black gold, violence, mass immigration, terrorism. Nowhere would be safe. But he, Jim Smith, could prevent it. Step in at the eleventh hour with some state of the art solar wizardry, or, I don’t know, super-sonic windfarms or, no, something new entirely: some method of harnessing rotting waste, or sewage or the energy released by the universe itself! Big Bang Batteries! Jim Smith, hero of humanity!
On the other hand… It could, after all, be years, decades, centuries even before things got that bad and what if they never did? All that time and effort wasted and he’d be nothing more than another green-energy bandwagoner, competing with all the other cash-strapped hippies. No-one ever got rich saving the world after all and first things first, he needed money. A lot of money. Fine, scrap energy, he could get to the bleeding heart stuff later.
OK, so what made money? It would have to be consumer technology, weapons or oil. Oil was dull – really powerful drills? Please. Consumable technology was definitely high-profile, but laptops and mobile phones just felt a bit, well, meh. Weapons though. Now there was something dramatic, something you could get creative with. The possibilities were endless: Giant war robots, bad-ass laser guns, ultra-slick body armour with mounted jetpacks, tiny mosquito sized surveillance drones, mega-tanks, super-accurate, one-click, half way round the world and I can shoot the top of a bottle, sniper rifles. Yes, that was more like it. Action movie shit. Still saving the world, but doing it in style. With explosions. And robots.
OK, good, time to begin then, a creative genius montage: Some energetic music, a series of half-drunk coffee cups to show time passing, an increasing degree of inventive disarray…
Researching, reading up on robotics, weaponry, check out your competitors, get to know the market. Clicking links, making notes, hundreds of tabs open, flicking between them, comparing, a few books and some files too, just for good measure. Then sketch out some ideas, basic at first, just shapes, echoes of things to come, pencil scribbles, biro jottings on the edges of notebooks and then the structural diagrams, annotated, arrows, measurements. Chose the best and develop them, think outside the box, don’t be afraid to scrap things, start from the beginning if necessary, build on your ideas, let them grow, blossom. One image has emerged from the pack, a single design, growing, morphing, becoming more intricate, more refined, until a final form emerges on the screen. Rest there for a moment, then, camera pans out and a seamless match cut to our invention sitting right there on the desk. A scaled prototype. Three-dimensional. Real.
The inventor sits back, looks at his creation and smiles. The music stops.
This is it. The earth-shatteringly amazing invention that will make his fortune. Propel him into that position of glory he knows is his. Today he is merely, Jim Smith, Undiscovered Genius, but tomorrow…
But here, Jim Smith, Undiscovered Genius, pauses. His earth-shatteringly amazing invention sits on the table in front of him, waiting expectantly, and suddenly he feels the full weight of this responsibility. Jim frowns. To be a creator is to be god, in a way. To bring things into existence. To grant life. But then what? To what extent are you then responsible for what you create? How far will what it does, what it becomes, how other people see it, reflect on you? What if it grows, escapes, becomes uncontainable? What if it is misunderstood by others, or worse, bent, abused? Once you’ve let go, put it out there in the world as something free, separate from you, how can you prevent it from becoming something you never agreed to? What if it embarrasses you, hurts you, destroys you even?
Jim began to feel anxious. A bit like someone who was possibly, maybe, in a little over his head. Perhaps a weapon had been a slightly risky first step. Maybe he should have started smaller. With the automobile industry for instance, or kitchen appliances. Something a little less… killy.
But then cars were hardly innocuous and even kitchen appliances - Jim had seen horrific things achieved with garbage disposal units and bagel slicers in the movies.
The earth-shatteringly amazing invention on the table top began to flicker and fade. To cease to be. There was no rush, Jim thought to himself reassuringly as he watched it disappear. His genius obviously wasn’t going anywhere and he’d paid for a twelve month lease on the lab upfront. No hurry then. He could take his time. Move carefully. No need to try and get it perfect on the first try.
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