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Daring Like DaVinci
What does it take to be Daring Like DaVinci? Commonly heralded by modern historians as a true genius and Renaissance man, DaVinci was famed for years for only his artwork. It took about 400 years for the rest of the world to realize he also needed to be recognized as an architect, painter, sculptor, mathematician, musician, geologist, inventor, engineer, writer, botanist, philosopher and I’m sure a few others that we have all overlooked. Talk about multi-tasking. His level of skill and ability rivals that of today’s modern mamas during summer break. Ok, maybe he’s not that good but very, very close. Let’s take a closer look at the man himself to figure out his audacious formula for bold and daring.
Fun fact: He made mistakes.
Well, at least one mathematical mistake that was enough for Scientific American to report on. You see, in a painting DaVinci made and then again repeated in a mathematician’s book, DaVinci had an error in his rhombicuboctahedron. What was he thinking having four sides instead of three at the bottom of one pyramid and having a few others appear to be triangular when they should, in fact, be quadrangular? Can you believe this guy? I know they consider him a genius and everything but would a mistake like that fly on a common core test today? I don’t think so.
He was a bit scattered.
DaVinci’s notebooks were discovered long after he left this world. In them, we learned that DaVinci had drawn up and planned out many modern inventions, developed well before their time. He had laid out the concepts that included a flying machine, armored vehicle, diving suit, machine gun, and a robot. He also developed a plan for a hygienic city after the Black Plague ravaged Europe.
The best part of his genius was, it wasn’t clearly laid out on a piece of paper. Instead his thoughts, ideas and genius were spread across many pages. Now some folks out there argue that it was a genius tactic to prevent someone from being able to easily steal his ideas. Others out there believe that he was just scatter brained and sprawled his thoughts and ideas over pages like a mad man.
I like to think that I have taken a page from the playbook of DaVinci genius. My crazy, I mean genius, approach to life is very similar. Just to plan a weekend trip I have hand written notes, bookmarked links, and a thousand web pages emailed to myself. My meal planning and grocery shopping also follows this line of genius development.
He set up for failure.
Well, technically, the ideas and inventions in his notebooks were never actually made during his time. But, hundreds of years later when curious folks started to piece together his genius it was discovered that some of his military-esque inventions were actually built to sabotage themselves. The armored vehicle, for instance, was actually designed so the gears worked against each other. How daring is that? To have work out there with the potential for mass destruction but built its failure into the plans to prevent it from happening. This is oddly similar to having a hangry toddler heading into the grocery store but secretly have a bag full of snacks and an iPad to survive.
Daring Like DaVinci
Isn’t that what makes him (and us) great? That he could be wrong and prepared for failure and was still a genius that changed the world and shaped our modern ideals of what a true Renaissance man looks like. He was so many great things in this world and he was still a humComments will be approved before showing up.