Tail Light

Vocation (vōˈkāSH(ə)n), noun, a strong feeling of suitability for a particular career or occupation.

How many of us have found our true vocation? How many of us are dedicated to changing one small piece of the world? How many of us wish “Meh Writer” looked better on a resume?

Say what you will those who created the Illumibowl, the original motion-activated toilet light. Say that appearing on Shark Tank to sell a lavatory lamp was humiliating. Say that the 2,428 (!) Amazon reviews for their product are middling (many concerning the poor suction cups, a feature which has been improved with this version).

But don’t say they didn’t dedicate themselves. Don’t say they didn’t bear down and produce something.

The Illumibowl inventors said “It sucks to turn on a blinding light in the middle of the night and it also sucks to try to do one’s business in the dark,” and lo, there was toilet light. And some day in 2040 when toilet bowls are commonplace – nay, mandatory – you will look back at these brave potty pioneers with gratitude.

Countless products you might currently share a room with are thanks to the quixotic quest of an inventor who sought to solve some problem nobody else was even aware of. Consider Douglas Engelbart, the inventor of the computer mouse, whose original prototype would undoubtedly have been scoffed at by Mark Cuban:

Or Margaret Knight, who invented the flat-bottomed paper bag. Before Margaret, lunch bags didn’t stand up on their own and nobody saw this as a problem. After Margaret, the idea of a non-freestanding bag seems absurd.

Yet invention will always run parallel to that devious twin: intellectual property theft. The Illumibowl dudes have had to grapple with imitations, knock-offs, and downright copycats, which could be part of the reason we got the real-deal originals for so cheap. But no matter how much revenue those pickpockets squeeze from the toilet light market, they will not die knowing they contributed something, however trivial, to the grand human project.

Man, we need a vocation.