It is lonely at the top.
Such words have been uttered across countless civilizations and eons, spoken by beings who climbed higher than their peers and found themselves standing alone in territories no one else could reach!
But the loneliness of achievement pales in comparison to the loneliness of pioneering.
Those who reach the top of established paths at least have the comfort of knowing others have stood where they stand. They can look down and see the trail that led them upward, they can identify the footprints of predecessors who validated their journey through completion. They are alone in position but not in experience.
Pioneers have no such comfort.
They walk paths that do not exist until their feet touch ground. They climb mountains that have no peaks until they declare a stopping point. Every step is a question without a guaranteed answer, every advancement a gamble that could end in triumph or catastrophe with equal probability.
