The Wright Brothers, David McCullough
What surprised me the most about this book was that the Wright brothers pursued their dream of creating the first flying mechanism for over a decade, imagining myself pursuing one goal for ten years would be astounding. The Wright brothers were admirable in their dedication, setting such a longterm goal aside and achieving it is something that not a lot of people can say they have done. What I least admired was that the Wright brothers put their social lives on hold for the most part when it came to achieving their goals and I think it would have been nicer to hear they managed to keep up successful relationships with people while in the pursuit of creating airplanes. They definitely ran into obstacles such as Wilbur's accident that left him inattentive to continue school which was considered destiny for them because it gave them time to work on planes. Both of the brothers were very smart and intuitive, they never looked at an end goal as unattainable and I really agree with that mindset. One part of the book that confused me was the medias denial of the idea that "man should fly", which I can not believe was the populations mindset at the time. I would ask the Wright brothers if the decade long venture was excruciatingly slow or fast? I would also ask them how they felt after being denied by the US government and the media? I would ask these specific questions because I would imagine ten years is a long time and I want to know how it felt from their perspective. The Wright brothers opinion of hard work would most likely be a positive one because they seem very driven by the adventure of chasing something.
Millaed,
ReplyDeleteI wrote my first reading reflection on the Wright Brothers and thought their story was very interesting. Its hard to believe that not too long ago the majority of people had no interest or desire to fly, and now thousands of people fly each day. Overall great job!