There is this story I once heard about a man who lived on a mountain. He was a very clever man but prone to isolation. He grew his own food and traded with other people very little and kept to himself. He also spent a lot of time in his workshop. Most of his life he was working on a fabulous machine, all brass and and pipes, that he thought would change the world.
As he got along in years he finally got his machine to work just the way he wanted it tow work. He also felt compelled to share it with the rest of the world. So he packed his blueprints and some sandwiches and started down the mountain to the one shop where he had traded all his life. He told the shop keeper of his marvelous invention and the shop keeper, not quite sure what the old hermit was babbling, said that there was nothing he could do about it but that if he went down to the end of the road he could get to the big city.
The old man thanked him and made his way down to the end of the road where he had never been. When he arrived he was stunned by the sight of a great glistening steam locomotive pulling into the station. He was at once amazed and heartbroken. He turned on his heels and headed back up the mountain. You see he had spent his entire life living apart from his fellow man and because of his isolation he did not know that what he had toiled so hard on, the steam engine, had already been invented.
