I wonder if part of my inner issues in life have to do with the fact that I have been trying to solve life's infinite riddles since I first drew breath?
Human life has begun to remind me of a rock being cast into a stagnant pool of water. There is usually a sizable splash and then ripples that follow. Now this splash and the aftermath ripples depend upon the size of the rock and how hard it was thrown. I have begun to see the correlation between the impact a human life can have and the ripples from a stone's throw. If a human can impact a million lives will it continue to impact after that, i.e. ripples of influence? If a human impacts more lives is the splash bigger and are there more ripples? How far do the ripples go? How many ripples are there? How long do the ripples last? Is there a difference between a human life that affects millions of lives slightly or a human life that deeply affects another single human life? How can we measure this? Does this matter? Should this matter?
Let's take Abraham Lincoln as an example. He did many great things in his life and changed the way people thought and the way lives were lead. Lincoln has to this day continued to influence and inspire Americans and even others greatly, but how much influence has he caused nowadays and for how much longer will his influence last? I have a feeling that, Abe, being a leader of the great magnitude that he was will continue to influence many for hundreds of years to come, but I do not think if humanity continues to survive past another few thousand that his legacy will thrive. Imagine that humans colonize other worlds; what will the words and teachings of Abraham Lincoln or any other influential figure matter then?
I think my perpetual questioning of this is actually coming to a stand still because I have come to a bit of a realization. It does not, and should not, matter how many peoples' lives you affect but instead how you affect them. If I end up changing one person's life for the better instead of many peoples' then I will feel satisfied that I have done my job here in this thing called life. However, if I end up not influencing a single soul to better themselves in any manner then I feel I should accept that failure and wander in to the dark bowels of ruin. In other words I don't think it is the mark you leave on many but the thought you leave in one. Who is more important: the revolutionary or the person that influenced that revolutionary into thinking that way and doing what he/she did? Who knows, maybe you or I could be the next person to influence the next true revolutionary that creates the necessary paradigm shift that this world needs to see so humans can continue on eternally.
Please excuse some of my dark or harsh thoughts here but it is a rare occasion that I am actually sitting in front of my computer when I am truly feeling a wee bit philosophical. To completely understand my thinking and where I am coming from you need to do a few things and those are see the movie Cashback (2006), read or see Into The Wild, and read Ender's Game. These things will hopefully help to open your mind a little into a different way of thinking, but before you do those, you, yourself, must be willing to open the floodgates of free thinking.
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In The Shape of Time (I can't stop with this book), George Kubler analyzes this in a profoundly interesting way. Rather than examining it from the influence of someone outward (the splash to the ripples), he reverses the concept and considers the key elements to a great person's influence based off of "good" and "bad" entrances into history (essentially the ripples to the splash). He makes a pretty interesting setup by listing off some examples:
ReplyDelete"It is meaningless to debate whether Leonardo was more talented than Raphael. Both were talented. Bernardino Luini and Giulio Romano were also talented. But the followers had bad luck. They came late when the feast was over through no fault of their own. The mechanics of fame (social impact) are such that their predecessors' talent is magnified, and their own is diminished, when talent itself is only a relatively common predisposition for visual order, without a wide range of differentiation. Times and opportunities differ more than the degree of talent."(pg.7-8)
According to Kubler, people like Abraham Lincoln were graced with particularly fortunate entrances, remarkable set ups for lives that were inevitably to lead to permanent historical significance. Abraham Lincoln was possibly only remembered as great because he happened to achieve what he did based on incredibly specific determinants. Even at that, he is essentially remembered for his role in the Emancipation Proclamation, a document behind the times even then (Britain had abolished slavery at the turn of the 19th century), and one that took 100 years after its enactment to truly be socially recognized. He did other great things as well, but has been venerated to idol like status with his life and important social events of his time engaging one another as complete coincidence.
Now, in lieu of all that, I think it can be safely stated that influence is not necessarily a determinant of greatness. Millions of great, profound people are influenced everyday, but are certainly never recognized because of it. So does that make them failures? I personally don't believe so. I believe its probably as simple as being in the right place at the right time. Another example given in the book points out the coincidence of Charles Darwin and Alfred Wallace both developing an origin of the species theory at practically the same time. A particular series of events left one unrecognized and rocketed the other into history forever. Perhaps the only failure Wallace could be guilty of was not having a good entrance.
That said, I'm gonna go poop now.
Paragraph 3, I meant to say millions of great profound people are influencing others everyday
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