I’ve become a huge dork about figure skating lately.
I got especially obsessed with the Japanese skater Yuzuru Hanyu. A while back—and not long ago, either—he broke 19 records and won the Olympics two times in a row. And he did a lot of other stuff that nobody cares about who doesn’t follow figure skating.
(I promise this is going somewhere.)
But now, the US skater Nathan Chen is smashing all those records.
Hanyu used to be unbeatable. Now even he can’t catch Chen.
And barely anybody even mentions Evgeni Plushenko anymore, who was on top of the skating world for years.
You can apply that to just about any field. Who talks about Bette Davis or Tyrone Powers these days?
My point is, the world turns.
As Marcus Aurelius said:
“Words once in common use now sound archaic. And the names of the famous dead as well: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus… Cato… Hadrian and Antoninus…
“Everything fades so quickly, turns into legend, and soon oblivion covers it. What is ‘eternal’ fame? Emptiness.
“Then what should we work for?
“Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like water from that same source and spring.”
I don’t think Marcus would agree that what we achieve has no effect on our fellow man. He also talked about the way a single person’s actions affect the whole of society (even if that person was just a simple pleb baker). And he saw this interconnection as a reason to be the best version of ourselves possible.
Be the best version of yourself because it uplifts us all.
But he was saying not to get egotistical about achievements.
Because they only really matter inasmuch as they affect the people around you, who are inhabiting the same world as you are.
And if that’s the only way you can affect people, being a good and humble person, with an untroubled mind, is all the more important.
*
Love,
L.