Guinea pigs and trailblazers

There was an interesting moment in a meeting I was in today where, as people involved in the initial stages of what might be a longer-term project with a certain large scientific and historic institution here in the UK (which I cannot name for certain reasons), we were wondering if we were pioneering something new or were trying it out so we can find out if it fails.

In life itself we often know little of whether we are heading to failure or on the cusp of something novel. The line between a guinea pig and a trailblazer is poetically narrow. Every guniea pig could potentially become a trailblazer and everyone who heads out to be a trailblazer risks becoming little more than a guniea pig. What they both have in common is that they offer us numerous lessons in the end.