I've always felt that in order to be truly great, is to go where no one has been before. Or to see things with a completely fresh perspective, that may be considered alien by others. Greatness can often seem incredibly cold, unknown, calculating, assessing and veryvery inhuman. I think the balance is needed, not to forget the point of greatness, which is to better humankind, in whichever sphere or domain ie: music, art, writing, peace, relations, politics, economy, science...etc.
In saying that, I'm sure there will be people who would argue with me on the point of refining talent, achieving greatness, accomplishing great acts. The point I raise though is, despite how some people may say that they do things for themselves, we still perform, create, enact for self-validation through others. What is the point of it all, if there is no one who can appreciate, or pretend to appreciate? Be it now, later, post-humously?
I think it's neccessary to be incredibly alone, to be lonely to reach greatness. To be willing to cut off all human connection for a while, to traverse the depths of self. To explore the psyche, to be incredibly narcisstic, self-obsessed and preoccupied. To be severely introspective and then to direct that very same scope towards the outside world and then to create and recreate.
Again, other questions arises: How is greatness measured, who does the measuring, who agrees to this measured 'quality' or 'quantity', what dictates greatness, how does one dictate such?
It might even be neccessary to be cruel, to be kind. Can any price be worth achieving greatness, be it that perceived by others, one individual or self?
I've read somewhere that true greatness is never recognised within its time. It is always beyond the scope and capacity of society to accept or understand such and will almost always be appreciated post-humously or muchmuch later. Should 'greatness' be received and appreciated within its time, it is no true greatness, but rather one of commonplace convenience.
On being great though, loneliness becomes self-fulfilling. It is no longer a state of mind that needs to be strived for.
2 comments:
I have mixed feelings on this.
There is much to support your argument. There are so many greats who have led strange, solitary lives. Sometimes, they appear asocial, asexual, or just totally socially incompetent...the most common price for greatness in some respect, I think. Makes sense. Sometimes, being alone just gives one time to reflect and/or think longer and harder. Sometimes it aids honesty. Emerging periodically from loneliness could also only heighten one's emotions.
I also agree with greatness sometimes appearing inhuman, and kindness sometimes being cruel. Within every age, there are conceptions of what constitutes humane action floating around, and those with weaker minds judge their own humanity by these standards. Those who do so simply aren't as likely to be independent thinkers, therefore less likely to be creative. Also, I'd say many greats simply are less interested in human life than in the workings of the universe, hence labelled inhuman.
Where my opinions differ slightly:
--While the source of some greatness is a different perspective, much greatness just consists of significantly advanced knowledge. To do this, sometimes one just has to soak up all the knowledge, hypotheses and ideas available, and then to make further developments. SOME scientific discoveries are very much cumulative like this.
--Some types of 'greatness' require avid social interaction (although you may not be using the word this way)
--Other forms of greatness are said to just require 10,000 hours practise...as your brain slowly changes its architecture to specialise in one type of thinking, you tend to exceed others in that function. I suspect many of the one-sided geniuses have basically done this. In a sense though, you're still right, those that are doing this might be 'lonely' - that is, extremely absent-minded, not involved socially, because of their strange brain architecture.
--I think that in this day and age, greatness is likely to be recognised sooner than in days of old. Because information can spread so quickly, it reaches much more people much faster, many of whom consider your ideas/work and process it with others. So there's simply much more opportunity to be recognised during your lifetime. Also, with the general pace of change in society accelerating, the rest of society is likely to catch up to some level of greatness faster than before. WHat do you mean by commonplace convenience, though?
Heh, I think many very mediocre people now strive to be lonely, because they think doing so will make them great.
Most likely though, I think loneliness is just a realistic symptom of greatness, and not the cause or even necessarily part of the package of greatness. Perhaps great people, because of their greatness, are above most in many ways, so often just don't find many others like them that they enjoy hanging out with/marrying. (But if they did, it wouldn't hinder their greatness, so they're not logically connected).
"WHat do you mean by commonplace convenience, though?"
- I was speaking in relation to how people search, or invest their wish for a 'hero. Very often, people claim greatness through others who are gullible or who simply have no idea and would like to have 'witnessed greatness'. And then this phenonmenon occurs, where people nod their heads, applaud and then simper their appreciation--(the shopping frenzy on boxing day crowd when people buy simply because they see other people buying so they don't want to miss out on this 'incredible' sale).
"Heh, I think many very mediocre people now strive to be lonely, because they think doing so will make them great." ----> How. very. very true.
It's almost become this romanticised idea of what greatness is. The lonely, lonesome, romantic figure in his/her ivory tower. lol.
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