I made a beautiful discovery today. The word founder has five different meanings that imply both glorious establishment and sinking collapse.
Given Silicon Valley’s obsession with founders, I find this hilarious. Silicon Valley worships founders, but not founders who founder.
But I also find it fitting. Being a creator inherently means subjecting oneself to stumbles and falls. The connotations of grandeur cannot escape the connotations of failure.
founder /ˈfaʊndə/
- noun. A person who establishes an institution or settlement. ‘he was the founder of modern Costa Rica’
- noun. A person who manufactures articles of cast metal; the owner or operator of a foundry. ‘an iron founder’
- verb. Fill with water and sink. ‘six drowned when the yacht foundered off the Cornish coast’
- verb. Stumble or fall from exhaustion, lameness, etc. ‘some of their horses foundered and damaged themselves in the stones of the riverbed’
- verb, Irish. Make (someone) very cold. ‘get a fire lit, I’m foundered’
Source: Oxford Dictionary