“I'm with you
Whenever you tell, my story
For I am all I've done
Remember, I will still be here
As long as you hold me, in your memory
Remember me”
Whenever you tell, my story
For I am all I've done
Remember, I will still be here
As long as you hold me, in your memory
Remember me”
These lyrics written for the motion
picture, “Troy” reverberate mans struggle for importance throughout today’s
society as strongly as they did for the ancients. The story of “Troy” recounts
the Greek Mythological story of Achilles. In the film he is approached by his
mother, who gives him two options. She tells him that he may go and fight in
the war over Helen of Troy, and if he does that then he will die, but his name
will echo throughout time and never be forgotten. But if on the other hand, he
chooses to stay, he will have children and live a long and happy life, but once
his children’s, children are dead, his name will whither as will his body and
be forgotten. Though Achilles feels no loyalty to his king or country, he
chooses to fight, because the desire to not be forgotten and to be important
supersedes everything else, even the preservation of his own life.
Today we have created our own modern
pathway that defies logic, but leads to the same end of established importance
that scorches our name into the very fabric of time. Today just as it was for
the ancients, this pathway is paved with lies disguised as truth. Whilst the
lies have changed and morphed over time, they remain lies nonetheless and
continue to lay ruin to society.
We have replaced the honor and glory of the
warrior with acquisition of reaching the highest levels of success in career,
wealth and social contacts. Society in this present age tells its subjects that
if a person is to matter to this world, they must reach these great heights;
But requires not only reaching extraordinary levels of achievement, but to do
so instantly and with as little effort as possible. Society holds those who
achieve this remarkable whirlwind success as gods. A walk past the magazine
rack or a stroll through a favorite bookstore is evidence enough that this is
true. Faces plastered on biographies of people who figured out the formula to
instant success. Self Help books and biographies that seem to omit the hard
work that led to the success of those that had to earn their way to the top
only further confirm what our society values.
Further more this twisted path to self
worth says that everyone can obtain this instant success, that hard work is not
needed, only the right formula. This idea is responsible for the misery of
thousands that find themselves unable to commit to anything for more than a
year as they desperately try and figure out this magical formula that will
shoot them to the top; and terrified if they commit for longer that will they
will waste their life trying. This value manages to even spread its wretched
poison to the hardworking. It prompts them to believe that handwork means
nothing unless one reaches the top. That a life is wasted and meaningless if it
spends all of its years at work and still never obtains its goals. As if to
suggest that the target of reaching the top is an easy one and those who can’t
manage to figure out the formula to success are so thick headed they are a
waste of time and space.
What is to be done then? Is human kind
doomed to fall time and time again for the same lies, forced forevermore to
wander blindly down the brutal and hopeless road of twisted values in hopes
that we will stumble across something that will give worth to our name?
History, not only serves as a sad
reflection of mans unchanging desire for greatness, but if we look, it provides
extraordinary truths taught through the lives of exceptional people and
movements.
One of these extraordinary lives is that of
William Wilberforce. Wilberforce began his journey in 1780 as an independent
member of Parliament for Yorkshire. He lived the ordinary life of a politician
and while he had much success there was nothing truly remarkable about him.
Then in 1785 he went through a radical transformation through a conversion
experience. Out of this experience was born his deep conviction that slavery
should be abolished in England. This unwavering and relentless passion drove
Wilberforce forward for the next 26 years until in 1807 when the bill was
finally passed.
While Wilberforce’s achievement was
remarkable and changed the shape of the world, it is how he got there that is
even more remarkable than the victory itself. Wilberforce’s life serves as an
everlasting reminder of his undying reckless abandon of pursuing nothing else
and sacrificing everything for one goal. For us it seems an easy and a noble
decision to give ones life to such a moral cause. But for Wilberforce and the
world he lived in it was a foolish and reckless decision. For the people of the
late 1700’s slavery was not a moral decision, it was a political one. England
was built on the backs of slaves and to propose that these slaves be set free,
was as good as asking England to cut off her own legs, or handing the nation
surrender to France who were an ever looming threat. For Wilberforce’s
generation the abolition of slavery was crazy and even seen as being disloyal
to the country. So for Wilberforce to decide to give as many years of his life
as was necessary to this cause was an overwhelmingly daunting one. It had very
little hope of success and every hope of ridicule and dishonor from his peers.
It risked his social standing, his job, and reputation. But this mattered not
for Wilberforce, not even his ill health could stop him from what he knew in
his heart to be right.
Wilberforce was not after fame, he was not
after that formula that would burn his name into the fabric of time. He was
after a better world. He was after doing what he knew to be right. Because he
was not in it for himself, failure did not matter. He knew that even if he did
not succeed, that before God he would have spent his life trying. When he
finally did obtain his goal he did not do so by dreaming, by finding an easy
solution or reading a self help book. He did so through back breaking and
health crippling work. Wilberforce lived and breathed for the freedom for
slaves. We too need to understand this truth and practice it. Hard work is a
must if we are to ever to make a difference in this earth. Self sacrifice and
devotion to others must be our creed if we are to ever find true satisfaction
with our life’s work. For our end goal should not be to be remembered, it
should be to make a difference for future generations even if they never know
our name.
The next truth to be gleaned from history
comes through the lives of 3 men, Humphrey Davy,
Joseph Wilson Swan, and Charles Francis Brush. For most of us these names mean
very little or nothing at all, but the lesson they have to teach are
invaluable. In 1800 Humphrey Davy created the first electric battery that in
turn created the first electric arc, the worlds first source of electric light.
In 1860 Joseph Wilson Swan set out with the goal to make a long lasting
electric light. He discovered that paper filaments produced longer lasting
light but was unstable as the filaments burned out too quickly. In 1877 Charles
Francis Brush created a carbon arch that allowed him to use electric light to
illuminate a few town squares and stores, but still made it impractical for
general consumption. Then in 1879 Thomas Edison created his incandescent light
bulb that burned for 40 hours and brought electric light to the general public.
We do not hear the stories of the men that came before Edison often, but
without their discoveries the light would not have progressed to the place for
Edison to make his great discovery and change the way human kind lives.
In a society that preaches so loudly that
if you are not the one to win the prize in your lifetime then your efforts were
a waste of time, it is vital that we see that this principle is as far from the
truth as possible. Many of us are called to work hard to give our lives for a
cause we will never see completed. But this doesn’t make us failures; this
makes us a vital part of a team that spans generations. If we do not do our
part then when it comes time for the Edison’s of tomorrow to do their part, the
groundwork will not be laid and change will not come. It is so important to
understand that we, just like the men who came before Edison are of no lesser
value, we are equal to those who finally accomplish the goal for without us
they would have never achieved all that history has and will remember them for.
This world is much bigger than any one of us. Our actions will reverberate
throughout time hurting or helping generations to come, just as previous
generations have shaped the world to make it what it is today.
If we so choose to, we do not have to be
doomed to follow down the same pathway that led Achilles to his death and the
depression of so many today. If we choose to, we can look at the lessons that
history has to teach. We may choose to create a new road, a road that few will
tread, but with enough time, enough work and enough self sacrifice maybe,
someday, ours will be the road that future generations choose to walk. We need
not fear that we are unimportant or that we will be forgotten. Every action
leads to a reaction and we have only to choose if our actions will lead to
positive change for the future. Our actions, do not define us, they reflect us.
“Genius
is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” -Thomas A. Edison
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
