Cleverness, dare and luck

Last night, I was talking to my friend Vedana, recently back from 3 months in China. He told heaps of interesting stories, but I'm still processing the thoughts, so you can expect a post about it all soon.

One of the things that is easier to tell is the story of the picture of the student stopping the tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, one of the most famous photos in the world. The photographer was in his hotel window when he saw the scene and immediately realised there was something amazing going on. As soon as he shot his camera, he hid the tape under the toilet and kept on taking pictures. A few minutes later, soldiers invaded all the rooms and confiscated all the equipment. Luckily, they didn't flush the toilet.

When I heard that, I right away remembered the story involving another of the most famous images in our world, the picture of Kim Phuc running from a napalm bomb during the Vietnam War. That scene was captured by 2 journalists, who sent their material overseas for development, editing and publishing. One of the editors followed the rule of "no front nudism allowed" in newspapers and sent the pictures to trash. The other, noticing the potential impact of the pain captured in that picture decided to break the rules and publish it. It ended up strengthening the anti war movement and changing Kim Phuc's destiny for life.

These episodes make us wonder how many other changing opportunities we miss everyday and clearly tell us one single individual's cleverness, dare and luck can make a lot of difference.