AlanShore said:
Good for you, although no one on that list stands out as someone remarkable, unless you count being born in Belgium an achievement. I find the people I've been in contact with through school, university and my work to be almost entirely worthless, boring, dull and content to stagnate in their own mediocrity. Such a waste of potential.
You know, usually when I see this typed out, or said by someone, they are presupposing that they themselves aren't unremarkable. Now, of course, everyone cares about their own well-being and personal safety, but have you ever considered that your presuppositions about yourself being 'remarkable' are quite incorrect?
Now you
could feign some self depreciating stance of 'oh I know I'm not remarkable', but we both know that's not true. Anyone who openly states that the majority of people who they meet have the value of an animal simple because they are 'unremarkable' doesn't think poorly of themselves. Quite the opposite.
The problem with this idea that everyone is unremarkable is that it's entirely untrue. Every person has a massive impact on the world. They may not all invent some new medicine, they may not develop a cleaner burning fuel, or cure cancer, or some other incredible event, but their effect is absolutely there. And here it is, in a nutshell:
Say you take one guy (We'll call him Bob). What is Bob's effect on the world? You'd say it's nothing, I would say it's massive. Why? Because Bob has about 10 to 12 really close friends. Those are people he deals with on a regular basis who truly know him. Bob's conversations with them effects their perceptions of things (worldview) and their life experience. Even if Bob is an idiot, and they totally disagree with things he says, his very being and friendship effects them. These 12 friends all have varying degrees of 'other' close friends that Bob doesn't know. By Bob's influence, through his friends, they effect their friends. They
they effect [/i]their[/i] friends, and so on and so on. Even if it's something like "Man, my buddy's friend bob said the stupidest thing...", that's an effected life. Now, that's all besides the fact that Bob will run into hundreds of people per day! Slowing down a line, holding the door for someone to keep them moving briskly, buying the last item at a store before someone else, taking that last cab, offering that seat to the elderly woman.
These are hundreds of lives that will effect thousands more, through the most minute and seemingly insignificant actions. Bob keeping someone late to work can get that guy fired, who goes home early to find his wife cheating on him, who then goes through a serious depression, comes out of it, and writes a book about overcoming adversity that doesn't sell great, but still helps thousands of other men come out of a similar rut he was in.
That can happen.
That's the beauty of humanity, and it involves every person.
And that's pretty freakin' remarkable.