The Maelstrom

As a child I spent countless hours reading comic books. One of my favorite characters was the super-hero Thor. In one issue Thor says, and I'm paraphrasing, 

  "Tis not through fear, but by jumping into the maelstrom of life itself that thou shall find thy wisdom"

Caution will keep us safe, but at what cost? We don't have stories to tell our grandchildren, we don't have scars, we spend our precious few years on earth melting into the background as another insignificant statistic.

In the end we live but we're not alive. Progress is owed to the non-conformist, the revolutionary, the inventor who refused to keep his feet planted firmly on the ground, against all odds.