@DiscordTiger Said
I think greatness as whole is almost impossible to define that it is a completely meaningless standard. Like a fluff goal, it sounds good but its essentially crap and nothing is going to get accomplished.
I do think you can measure individual thing and compare how well a person or country is doing, I just don't see a standard across the board.
I suppose the closest could be happiness. Being happy with you have is great, but that is going to vary for every different person or thing. Like the beaver is going going to be happy with the dam, the bear not so much when it stops the fish from swimming by for lunch.
Or is the bear happy because he doesn't compare the reality to the what if or what was. Is it the again that is the problem word and not great.
Like striving to be great is fine, but once you define it, you limit it for yourself or someone else. That is the issue i have, nothing in this world operates in a vacuum.
Thank you. Yes, impossible to define. Reality can only be lived, not "thought". Definitions tend to congeal and obstruct. At least I think so.
I'm not knocking words. I was looking at definitions and synonyms of "greatness" and it was all very suggestive and interesting.
Definitions:- the quality of being great; eminence or distinction.
Synonyms:- grandeur, glory, prominence, magnanimity........and so on.
Moving on to the "spiritual" (not a word I like) there is the "watercourse way" of the Tao, seeking the lowliest places, yielding; which has its own "greatness."
.......laying low
Seeking out the poorer quarters
Where the ragged people go
Looking for the places only they would know.
(Paul Simon, lines from "The Boxer" )
So many ways of seeing it played out. The French philosopher (and Algerian goalie!) Albert Camus once said:- "Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken."
And from the NT, the words of Christ, which find their echo in the Tao.....
"Let the greatest among you be the servant of all. For whoever makes himself great shall be humbled and whoever humbles himself shall be made great.”
Well, at least this all gives another perspective on those red Maga hats.