Ambitions, Passions, Devotion, Drive
These are the fuels that inspire man. These are the causes for change, victory, and success that pepper history books. These are the things that give normal men heart to strive onward through failure to reach their goals.
It is easy enough to break down the success of idolized heroes that achieved greatness: seek a goal, strive forward despite opposition, never quit. The simplicity of success does not remove the need for its application. The most convicted person's passion can fade. The most ingenious man can err, but the one that succeeds will achieve regardless. Greatness can be seen as unexpected or unlikely for those of lower socio-economic standings, but regardless of resources, the persistence to follow passion will accomplish anything it sets out to do.
This consuming passion can pass from a leader to inspire an army to trounce a larger, better equipped enemy, from a single philosopher to individuals that act upon those ideals and create revolutions of mind, matter, government, and society, from a single research paper that incites scientific exploration deeper into theory, atmosphere, ecosystem, or genome. The fire of the desire is what must be protected for mythological greatness to be achieved.
Wild passion spreads, infects, and solidifies its existence, but action, persevering through failure, discouragement, and criticism, awakens the pulse of the goal itself.
Who might we look back on to note their achievements?
Alexander the Great - a charismatic general that inherited a unified Greece and elite Macedonian army. With an army of 30,000, he defeated the largest empire the world had ever seen at the height of its power. Never losing a battle, he onquered the world
Charlemagne - early king of modern day France in a period of war and educational void. He unified the Frankish tribes, united more of Western Europe than any between Rome and Napoleon, reinstituted learning when less than one percent of the population was literate, and set up the basis for modern Europe by acting as an abbot, a loving father, over his subjects. While conquering Germanic tribes to the east and establishing the modern definition of Europe, he struggled to find support from the Byzantine Empire, which he never succeeded in doing.
Genghis Khan - a Mongolian tribesman, he used innovative military techniques that transformed one of the backwoods of Eurasia into the origin of one of the largest empires in the history of the world.
Ludwig van Beethoven - while positioned from birth in a musically enriched family, he proved his substantial abilities but became poor and deaf, yet he still wrote music so energetically that walls and napkins were covered in musical scores.
Leaders throughout time, empire, circumstance, and interest have incited fervent support for their projects. However, passion is larger than mere politics, military intrigue, or economic production. Philosophers, authors, inventors, and those that dared be different achieved that which was thought impossible by reaching through the limiting fabric of realism to achieve what only dreams of determined, insurmountable energy can conjure with a focus that must be admired by others.
You're a nobody? Be a nobody that doesn't quit, that has unrestrained energy for hobbies, goals, and dreams. Be a nobody that matters.
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Agatha Tyche
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