Maverick Philosophy

I found this speech, from one of my heroes, as he was accepting the AFI's Lifetime Achievement Award.  I realized that it reflected my philosophy perfectly:

"There are a few of us left in this conglomerated world of ours who still trudge stubbornly along the lonely, rocky road and this is, in fact, our contrariety.

"We don't move nearly as fast as our cousins on the freeway.  We don't even get as much accomplished, just as the family-sized farm can't possibly raise as many crops or get as much profit as the agricultural factory of today.

"What we do come up with has no special right to call itself better.  It's just different.  No, if there's any excuse for us at all, it's that we're simply following the old American tradition of the maverick.  And we are a vanishing breed.  This honor I can only accept in the name of all the mavericks.  And also as a tribute to the generosity of all the rest of you, to the givers, to the ones with fixed addresses.

"A maverick may go his own way but he doesn't think that it's the only way or ever claim that it's the best one except maybe for himself.  And don't imagine that this raggle-taggle gypsy is claiming to be free.  It's just that some of the necessities to which I am a slave are different from yours."

--Orson Welles