A Renaissance Man
I have never thought of myself as such, but I’ve been called ‘a renaissance man’ twice; once many years ago by one of the kids at the chess club I ran in Denver. I was flattered, but didn’t think any more of it. Last week, I was interviewed for a Facebook live-streaming group and the title of the show was ‘A Renaissance Man Plugs Professionalism’. After the show had wrapped and aired, I found myself wondering why they had referred to me as such? The only thing I could think of is that I do a lot of different things; software developer, published author, feature writer (Showbiz magazine, Las Vegas); prolific writer, podcaster, logo designer, filmmaker (15 animated films), motivational speaker and humorist. I also speak French, Arabic, German and Spanish. Yes, it’s a lot, but it doesn’t make me a renaissance man, far from it.
But with that train of thought, I started to think about whom I consider to be Renaissance Men. Leonardo da Vinci springs to mind, of course, as does Michelangelo, Galileo, William Shakespeare, and there are many others who have influenced history.
I consider the actor, Anthony Quinn, who I had the great fortune to get to know, a renaissance man.
Yes, he was an actor, but he was also an incredible artist, a painter and a sculptor in marble. In fact, in my opinion, I think he was one of the greatest sculptors in history.
Apart from being multi-talented, he was a force of nature and, by that I mean, when he walked into a room it was as if all the air in the room was sucked out. Obviously that’s a form of charisma, which he had in spades, but he was so much larger than life, without being remotely full of himself or arrogant; he was kind and interested in people.
Getting back to Renaissance Men,I found a fascinating article on Ranker
listing 33 people whom the author considers to be modern day renaissance men. Many of the names on that list surprised me, as they will you, but what I found particularly fascinating is that the two people who I consider to be giants of the 20th century, Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, were not there, but why not?
Look at the intensity in their eyes. Yes, they’re studio shots, but the photographers have managed to capture the essence of who they are; absolutely unstoppable human beings.
Steve Jobs started Apple and turned it into the most successful company of all time. He completely revolutionized the music industry with iTunes and the iPod; he did the same with the computer animation industry, turning Pixar into a billion dollar powerhouse for animated films, and finally he was responsible for the iPad, which changed everything. The iPhone, I think, came after his death, but he was also more than partially responsible for it.
Then there’s Elon Musk who made a fortune with PayPal, started Tesla, the electric car company, an impossible dream in the minds of many people and yet now many companies are building electric cars. While he was building Tesla into the powerhouse it is today, he started SpaceX and has every intention of colonizing Mars. Then it was giga factories for electric batteries, and The Boring Company to dig underground tunnels easily. Who knows what he’s going to do next.
The term to describe both of these men is visionary. Both men saw the future. Elon Musk is still doing it; his vision is astonishing, and he’s not doing it for the money; he’s doing it for humanity. Recently, for a short while, he became the richest man in the world with a net worth of some $187 billion. When he was told about it, his reaction was, “Uh, that’s interesting. I gotta get back to work.”
Elon’s approach to building rockets is as unique as he is. He builds one and launches, knowing that it will probably blow up, but that he will learn from that failure and build another rocket and so on, until one doesn’t blow up. Then he starts designing a bigger rocket. This is what he uses his vast wealth for, and it allows him to make incredibly fast progress. He is not constrained by, nor is he interested in the opinions of, administrators and bureaucrats who are completely risk averse
With all the problems we have today, there are people who think that he should be spending his time doing anything but space stuff. They are wrong because they don’t see his vision. They don’t see that he is launching satellites to provide Internet access to the entire world, or that the rockets he is building are transporting goods and people to the International Space Station at a fraction of the cost of previous methods; mostly Russian rockets launched from Baikonour. Not only that, but they don’t see that everything he does is open source, which means that anybody can take his inventions, and improve on them, for the benefit of humanity.
I won’t be around to see it of course; in fact, probably none of us living today will be, but I believe that in the 22nd Century (if we manage to survive until then), Elon Musk will be regarded as the father of the Space Age. He’s certainly going down in history, as will Steve Jobs.
So which is it better to be; a Renaissance Man or a visionary. There are lots of Renaissance Men, but only a few visionaries. Give me a visionary every day.
