The Dirty Secret Behind Real Innovation: How Our Urge To Play Invented The Future

How Our Urge To Play Invented The Future
A child plays with Lego blocks during the opening of the brand's first certified store in Manila on May 12, 2015. Lego, the world's second-largest toy maker, said in February 2015 its annual revenue rose by 13 percent, boosted by its blockbuster movie and toys from its Star Wars and Friends ranges. AFP PHOTO / Jay DIRECTO (Photo credit should read JAY DIRECTO/AFP/Getty Images)
A child plays with Lego blocks during the opening of the brand's first certified store in Manila on May 12, 2015. Lego, the world's second-largest toy maker, said in February 2015 its annual revenue rose by 13 percent, boosted by its blockbuster movie and toys from its Star Wars and Friends ranges. AFP PHOTO / Jay DIRECTO (Photo credit should read JAY DIRECTO/AFP/Getty Images)

One of the most interesting things about writing books is the macroscopic picture that emerges when you’re done. Larger patterns begin to reveal themselves, bigger questions start to arise.

Take "Tomorrowland," my latest book. While technically an examination of those moments in time when science fiction became science fact, the book inadvertently became a study in a very playful form of countercultural rebellion. To put this in simple terms, the larger pattern that revealed itself when I was writing this book is the undeniable fact that the men and women who have invented the future didn’t come from the mainstream.

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