"So much of beauty, so much of what propels our pursuit of truth, stems from the invisible connections…between the interior world of each pioneer and the mark they leave on the cave walls of culture…" Maria Popova, Figuring

   The three-year-old boy shivering beside the pool. "Jump," his dad calls out. "Why?" the little boy thinks. "The shallow end of the pool is so much safer." 

   In the winter of 1889, a 23-year old governess named Maria Sklodowska stands at the entrance to a chemical laboratory at the Museum of Industry and Agriculture near Warsaw. She has chosen a career in chemistry & physics in a country (& a world) where men disdained & often blocked women from becoming scientists.

   Across the next decades, Sklodowska's courage, her willingness to dive into the deep end of the pool, enabled her to make discoveries so important that she was twice awarded the Nobel Prize (the only person to win in two different areas.)

   Anyone receiving radiation therapy for cancer, or benefiting in other ways from radiation, may thank Sklodowska (known later as Marie Curie) for surrendering comfort to benefit humankind. Her Radical Loving Care ended in her death from radiation exposure.

   Every pioneer trades safety for greater goals. A fraction succeed. Even the successful are often anonymous. And Curie is an inspiration to women all well as humankind.

   We owe all our gratitude for improving the quality of our lives as well as for sometimes saving them. 

   As for the boy by the pool, he represents millions of kids who choose the leap & learn to swim on their own. I was lucky to have a dad who caught me & who later taught me that success requires something beyond courage – persistence. 

-Erie Chapman, III

Snapshot of Erie Chapman, III by Erie Chapman, Jr.