I previously wrote about Steven Pruitt, the legendary Wikipedian who has an intense voluntary devotion to contributing to humanity’s database of free knowledge. Recently, I also came across the story of Michael S. Hart, the man who invented the e-book. Michael was also the founder of the Gutenberg Project — the largest library of free e-books on the Internet.
Similar to Steven, Michael’s primary pursuit in life was neither wealth nor fame; instead, all he seemed to have is a passion for literature and reading, and he devoted his life to helping spread works of literature to as many people as possible. These are truly selfless men who found a calling in life and put contribution to the greater good above their own selves.
Given the Opportunity
It is fascinating what people choose to do with the opportunities and the tools they are given.
Michael had two biggest passions ever since he was a child: knowledge and technology. He was an intellectually curious person who enjoyed reading, and he also loved tinkering with technological devices of the day such as the radio or the television.
These two passions combined to form the perfect opportunity: in 1971, when Michael was in university, he was granted access to a mainframe computer. For context: computers in the 1970s were massive — not to mention extremely expensive for regular users, and as such opportunities to use one was exceedingly rare. When Bill Gates had access to a computer in the late 1960s, he was fascinated with software and used that opportunity to develop his programming skills.
In Michael Hart’s case, what did he choose to do with the computer? Of course, being a technologist and a lover of knowledge, the idea of digitising books naturally came to him. He thought with a computer, he could type up a book and turn it into a digital form.
Not only that, but since his computer was connected to a network (an early form of the Internet), he also thought about distributing books to others.
And that is how the concept of the e-book came to be: from a man who loved reading and who loved technology. The perfect coincidence. He named this Project Gutenberg, after the man who invented the printing press in the 15th century.
The Mind-Boggling Commitment
The very first e-book Michael created was the U.S Declaration of Independence. After this, Michael was committed to digitsing as many books as possible. He envisioned a future where e-books became freely accessible to anyone with a computer. He continued to type, word by word, the books he had.
He also predicted the problem of software compatibility, and as such he chose the most simple format of text that any device can read.
He did this all by himself. Nobody helped him. People thought he was crazy, but he kept doing it anyway.
By 1987, he had managed to type 313 books in total. That is about 18 books per year, or one book every 3 weeks.
Let’s do some maths here: say a book has on average 100,000 words and took Michael 3 weeks to type. So he was typing almost 5,000 words every single day during this 17-year span. The average typing speed is around 40 – 50 words per minute, so he was spending around 2 hours of his own time every day typing and digitising books.
That is such a mind-boggling concept to think about. Think about it: every day, over the course of 17 years, this man quietly dedicated 2 hours a day to a mind-numbingly boring task (typing), for no reward and no recognition at all. He did it all voluntarily because he believed in its significant contribution to humanity.
A Frugal and Simple Man
In 1987, Project Gutenberg received its first volunteers. Michael was able to publicise his project, and his colleagues started to help type up books. In a single year, 1,600 books were added! That is 5 times the number of books he was able to add in 17 years. Talk about the power of the crowd.
Over time, as the Internet grew in popularity, so did the number of works added to Project Gutenberg’s library. Most works now seem to be scanned rather than typed. As of now, there are over 60,000 public-domain books in its library, available for download to anyone in the world.
There is no doubt that Project Gutenberg and the knowledge it has helped spread have had a massive impact on the world.
Michael, meanwhile, was living in poverty. He did odd jobs to make ends meet, and he was literally living off cans of beans. He repaired his own car and scoured garage sales for discarded electronic items to repair and build up. His house was full of books and old electronic equipment.
Michael’s friends describe him as a generous, humble, and humane person who was, at the same time, idiosyncratic and eccentric.
This man quite simply did not care about money. His single life goal, as he stated, was to distribute as many legally free e-books, to as many people on the planet and in as many languages, as possible.
Here is what Michael wrote right before he passed away:
My Last Goal: A Billion eBook Library
Premise #1:
There are ~25 million books in the public domain.
If we do ~40% of these that will be ~10 million eBooks.
Premise #2:
There are ~250 languages with over a million speakers.
If we do ~40% of these that will be ~100 languages.
Conclusion:
10 million eBooks translated into 100 languages yields
ONE BILLION eBOOKS
Note: I realize how impossible this sounds, given the
powerful lack of interest by thousands of translators […]Nevertheless, I plan to devote a serious amount of the
time I have remaining to doing the setup required.
Sadly he passed away soon after and never got to see his dream of having a billion e-books materialise. But still — every day, his project provides free e-books to millions of people around the world, and that is quite the accomplishment and influence a single man could possibly dream of.
Final Thoughts
What truly strikes me is that there are individuals like Michael who genuinely reject the pursuit of material wealth and money. They live a frugal lifestyle, and have an extreme sense of purpose in what they do. In Michael’s case, he happened to be at a unique point in history where his access to technology, his vision of the future, and his passion for knowledge combined to give him a calling: to disseminate e-books. And dedicate his life to this mission he did. He died poor, having left behind no children, but his legacy is alive and well.
I think it is extremely important that we find the calling in our life. This concept, the calling, has been in my mind quite often ever since I read Phil Knight’s autobiography. The calling has to be an ideal combination of our resources, passion, and circumstances. I don’t think I’m quite close to figuring out my own yet, but I think I am slowly getting there. One thing I can definitely agree with Michael: my life mission has to be something that benefits the community, and is definitely not about money.