History in the making

Illuminating 'Flyers Not Liars'

I'm flying, just like everybody else on Illumination

Industrial pioneer, mechanical genius and founder of the Ford Motor Corporation, Henry Ford once famously said "All history is bunk.....it isn't worth a tinker's cuss." Although he had a point about investing your time and energy into modern engineering practices, his comment was very clearly not true in many respects. There is a great deal to be learned from studying history, not least of all because quite often it is in history that we can find solutions to age old problems.

What I was trying to learn was something about naysayers and detractors of new ideas. Amongst many things I didn't know before, I came across the following.

On the 17th of December 1903 Orville Wright became the first man to fly an aeroplane. Today the airline industry is a multi billion dollar business which has transformed how the new world goes about its daily life. Yet in 1906 a certain French newspaper, The Paris edition of the New York Herald, called the Wright brothers out as nothing less than con men.

“The Wrights have flown or they have not flown. They possess a machine or they do not possess one. They are in fact either flyers or liars. We declare that they are liars!"

How wonderful the Wright brothers must have felt to give the French, if not the world, an amazing demonstration the very next day by flying their aeroplane in a figure of eight around a local Parisian field. What a sensationally satisfying "Stick that up your jacksy!" message that must have been.

The more you look back through history, the more you will find stories like this. Steve Jobs once totally ignored the advice of a colleague to forget all about his idea for a computer company that, in the opinion of this friend, "Just will not fly." We have all seen how that one played out, and still is playing out even now as I type this article on a state of the art Applemac.

James Dyson is another pioneer who had a great idea that was shunned by all the big vacuum manufacturers. So Dyson set about setting up his own manufacturing facility and the rest is history. The naysayers who claimed it was a none flyer even had the sheer brass neck to steal his idea and produce their own version of it.

Sometimes naysayers are just envious trouble makers who, failing to find any meaningful success in their own endeavours, merely seek to denigrate others. I suppose this gives them some sort of tainted satisfaction, especially if they can successfully railroad somebody else's more than worthwhile efforts and investment of time and energy.

Throughout my long life I have come across a great many people like this. People who could not stand the thought that I was successful, that I had gained with my hard work something they didn't have the nouse to gain for themselves. I have had my nice expensive car keyed, electric aerials snapped off, my car stolen and trashed, anything to make the wrong doer feel better about themselves.

I have been divorced twice and my life ruined by chancers who wanted what I had, an attractive wife. Then, after the holocaust, they proudly stride amongst the ruins blissfully happy at their dirty work. It is not unlike the brat on the beach who destroys another kid's beautiful sandcastle just because he didn't have the the wherewithal to dare to dream and make that dream come true for himself. These type of people are the bane of our lives and cause absolute mayhem with their nasty little games. But there is one thing they cannot do. They cannot destroy the dream, no matter how hard they try.

Illumination is such a dream, a vision of a man who has worked his ass off to achieve truly outstanding results. Seven publications, 130,000 readers, 8,500 writers, over sixty editors, let that sink in a moment or two if you will. It is sad to reflect that this runaway success attracted the attention and vitriol of certain people who cannot stomach the idea that somebody is being more successful than them.

I have seen the nasty comments and false accusations, that Illumination is crap and it is run by a con man. I am mindful of that old saying that what you say about others says more about you than it ever says about the target of your vicious abuse.

At this point I would like to point out Illumination has grown so much in such a relatively short period of time it is astounding. And although we do have some starter writers who need our help to improve, we also have some of the highest quality of writing you will find anywhere on Medium or indeed on the internet.

We have high profile famous name, published writers who have decided to join us and grace our fine publications with their excellent work. If somebody wants to call this 'Crap' then I pity for them and their misguided path through life. But let's not dwell on the naysayers, let us instead put our heads to the grindstone and continue to do what we have done thus far to get us to where we are. And also let us rejoice in the fact that we have writers who truly appreciate who we are and what we do for all writers, be they starter outers or high profile writers with hundreds of thousands of followers, like Tim Denning.

Ok, enough of what I personally think of Illumination, let's see what one of our appreciative other writers amongst our rank and file has to say about us.

My last words on this joyful Illumination experience is that as we soar across the deep azure, we are scribbling across the sky 'We are flyers not liars.' And if anybody wants to besmirch our good name, it says more about them than it will ever say about us. Calling our endeavours crap and a con will only serve to make you look the bitter and twisted, total and utter fool that you are.

You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time. Your time is up naysayers, who I steadfastly refuse to name and shame as they are not worthy of the fame. Up your own game or watch us as we reach for the stars. You cannot destroy our dream, it is absolutely pointless to try. Please do feel free to emulate our success and just maybe you will end up feeling as good about your lives as we do ours.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz Dr. Preeti Singh Dew Langrial Arthur G. Hernandez Joe Luca Ryan Justin Britni Pepper Maria Rattray Terry L. Cooper Terry Mansfield Agnes Laurens Thewriteyard Holly Kellums Ntathu Allen Rebecca Stevens A. Stuart Englander Tony Young, Jr. Geetika Sethi @Yohanan Marcus (Greg) @Zen Chan @Claire Kelly Sumera Rizwan The Maverick Files janny’s heart Neha Sandhir S Esther George Sabana Grande Aldric Chen Tree Langdon Earnest Painter @