Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. – Margaret Mead

It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. – Harry Truman

The film Zero Dark Thirty tells a story about the search for and ultimate assassination of Osama bin Laden. It follows the main character, a young intelligence officer, as she first becomes involved in and then gradually obsessed with the goal of finding him. This character was supposedly based on a real-life woman, though the film, for dramatic and narrative effect, no doubt heightened her role. Still, it is striking how central this lowly individual figures in the events. Her conviction and tenacity are at times the only thing keeping this mission alive. Her colleagues and superiors, more interested in run-of-the-mill career and political pursuits, had largely moved on from this far-fetched objective, and she had to show considerable defiance simply to be allowed to continue pursuing hard-won leads. In one instance, she obnoxiously counts the days of inaction by scribbling in marker on her superior’s office door, without which he would happily have let the whole thing quietly die. Later, at a meeting with a higher-up who will bring the decision to execute the mission to the president, everyone else uninterestedly professes 60% support. Only the force of her 95% belief, built on personal investment and first-hand experience, moved him. Ultimately, the mission is a success, and she is left in the isolation of an army base, quietly tearing up alone on a plane. 

When you look beneath the surface, you find that many projects follow this pattern. So many massive achievements, realized in the name of an organization as big as the CIA or the U.S. government, actually come down to a single individual, or a group of individuals. Ken Burn’s documentary about the Brooklyn Bridge explains how this megastructure, which remains an engineering and architectural marvel to this day, was the brainchild of a single civil engineer by the name of John A. Roebling. In his earlier career, he essentially came up with a new bridge design based on a new kind of cable that he had started to produce. Using this experience, he then single-handedly designed and laid all the plans for the bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn. He personally superintended construction, which, after his early death, was seen through numerous technical and political challenges by the perseverance of his son. One might have thought that such a bridge connecting two highly populated areas was an inevitability, just a straightforward and obvious practical necessity, but that was far from the case. 

Since the scale of these projects is big and their impact is so diffuse, they are easily just attributed to an organization or a society. To be sure, they are carried out in the name of the collective, but it would be a mistake to think that they just happen spontaneously through collective action. Very often, it is the singular obsession of one individual that makes them happen. Unlike the leaders at the top, who enjoy power and recognition, this individual struggles against internal opposition, disinterest, and skepticism, throughout the process, and is largely forgotten afterwards, a Sisyphean figure.

The individual often succeeds, however, in bringing into existence something far more extraordinary than would otherwise have arisen. This is plain in the case of the Brooklyn Bridge, as with other grand projects, such as the renovations of Paris and Barcelona. It’s perhaps even more apparent on a smaller scale. One of my favourite bars is called Gift Shop, a tiny bar seating only about 20 people tucked away behind a storefront. It’s run by a mysterious British guy with a colourful personality. He meticulously curates every detail of the experience, from the glassware, to the menu, to the entrance. The bar is an incarnation of his fanciful mind, just as modern-day Barcelona is an incarnation of the vision of Ildefons Cerdà. But just as the officer hunting bin Laden confronted the indifference and internal politics of the intelligence apparatus, running the bar in this exacting way meets with considerable pushback and negligent inattention. But for an almost irrational individual obsession, it would be impossible, and yet because of that something amazing exists.