I read about this sort of thing the other day. You always hear about the few successes and people who struck it rich. They kept trying and never gave up, but you never hear about the 10 million other failures. People ruin their lives trying to fulfill dreams or ideas that weren't worth pursuing from the beginning and pay dearly for it. Empty bank accounts, ruined credit, relationships, etc.
There are really two kinds of dreams: Dreams of arrival, which involve riches and fame and usually end in sorrow; and dreams of process, which involve the simple liberty of doing something interesting with your life. That's the kind of dream everyone should have access to -- the real American dream if you will.
I know Ryan personally. We grew up together. He "failed" for a long time and it didn't ruin his life. He had a great wife and two kids even after many "failures." But his dream was a dream of process. He was already doing what he enjoyed before you heard of him.
Actually, almost all of us are surrounded by people who haven't struck it rich yet. We're swimming amid the 10 million "failures." Some feel they are failures because they're not Jennifer Lawrence; some feel they are failures because they're trapped in an awful job; and some only appear to be failures, because you haven't heard of them yet. But they're already doing what interests them, and they don't feel like failures at all.
I'm the third kind. Ryan was the third kind until a few months ago. We should try to celebrate him, not ignore what he did.
Also...why are we all commenting on a 3-week old article?
I'm frequently reminded of Bulletball https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOOw2yWMSfk
Guy gave up pretty much everything, job, home, family, 25+ years of his life, to come up with a very mediocre table sports game.
It's hard to parse good ideas from bad ideas. I hope this is a good idea, but lots of people chase bad ideas for far too long.
It turns out Bulletball has found a niche in handicap therapy, which is awesome. But it's been a really hard road to get there.
On the other hand, society as a whole profits immensly. Would you really want to give up on that? Wasn't this the major argument against communism and bureaucracy?