Regular people seldom understand the price paid for greatness. It’s one of those things that you logically know about, but don’t actually know or believe. And that’s really as it should be because if you knew, really knew about the prices paid by people for their greatness you wouldn’t envy them so much anymore, if at all. And that, believe it or not, would take away some of their shine. People are golden as much because we see them that way as because of what they actually do. Of course people can be great without being seen as such, but they won’t have the greatness.
Although great people are golden for a reason. Much of that shine is only surface deep. Though their ideas can be brilliant, their compassion, their love for the world and so on there is much darkness inside the golden ones. It’s one of those balance issues with how the world works. For something to shine on the outside it needs perhaps to be dull on the inside or extremely sensitive, be extremely hard or frail or have a history of roughness. Great people have this balance in their life. Constantly in one way or another. For many it’s a past that keeps them up at night or irrational fears about being a fake. Others have trouble letting people inside, keeping lovers and friends close. Others still are so afraid of failure that they can’t enjoy for a minute what they have for fear it will slip between their fingers. And of course there are those who just work too hard to ever be able to fully enjoy life, always working for a better part, a better thing, a better world.
They say the brighter the light, the shorter the flame burns. This is also true in some cases. But as we all are different people, so we all pay a different price for the life we lead, be it great or not so great. It’s strange really how few people would ever recognize their own greatness if they saw it in the mirror. Which they do, every day. But it’s so easy to believe everything bad that’s ever said about us, to us, around us. We as people have a tendency to soak everything negative up like a sponge and once it’s inside us. It stays there. We often starve for affection or recognition and we soak that up as well, but strangely enough it never gets a hold on us quite as good as the bad stuff. It takes a lot of work or much innocence to be able to believe the good things people tell us or just to enjoy the good things that happens to us, the good things that we see or experience.
That’s why it’s so important when looking at great people to remember that even a diamond was once a piece of coal and to end up a diamond it would have had to endure incredible pressure under a long time. That’s a good thing to remember about all people you meet actually. We all have had our difficulties and we are all in one way or another on our way from coal to diamonds with all of the tempering of our souls that comes with it. So be gentle with your fellow man. Too much pressure and the cracks might go deeper than time can mend.
