Swimming against the current: how great innovators are born
In my subconscious, I always felt that to really become good at you are doing, sometime or another, you had to stand up to the establishment. Take the example of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Galilei championed the heliocentric model (the Earth revolving around the Sun), he went against the most powerful establishment at that time, the Catholic church, went to trial and was found heretical. He spent the remainder of his life under house arrest.
On top of being an astronomer, a physicist, an engineer and mathematician, Galilei was also a philosopher. I believe that he represented both sides of the coin: the scientific side and the artistic side, which allowed him to really test the limits of his time.
Let’s come back to the 20th century and the life of Steve Jobs. Needless to mention, he is considered as one of the greatest minds of this century. The success of Apple came from his genius brain but also from his artistic and sensitive soul. He dropped out of college and traveled to India to study Zen Buddhism.
I could give many more examples of how true pioneers and innovators are in touch with their artistic side. We should go back to the examples in history and be certain that humanities compliment, or rather, are one of the essential blocks of our education. That is, if we want to produce thinkers and really good swimmers who can take on the greatest currents and never deviate from the right path.