So what is it that makes someone great? I think of Michael Jordan and the stories I grew up listening to about his work ethic, how he didn’t make the team his freshman and sophomore years but spent those years working hard, so that he would eventually become the player who would go off to Chapel hill and make his mark. You compare that to the legend that he created with that work ethic, and what do you have? Is it greatness? Undoubtedly.
Sticking with basketball as a theme, look at Lebrone, Koby, Carmello…we’ve heard jordanesque stories about Bryant’s work ethic in Highschool and into the pro’s. But can any of us really say that these giants became great just by work ethic? Do you mean to tell me that Steve Erkle could spend that much time in the gym and see that type of success? This brings me around to my point, greatness. Where does it stem from? Is it inherent; a person is born with a greatness inside of them that needs to be unleashed? Is it created with the work ethic stories of Jordan, Bryant, and others? Is it based on what a person actually does, not where they come from, as in the case of Benjamin Franklin? Can someone just BE brilliant and amazing and have that light shine just as brightly as the person who works day in and day out at accomplishing it?
And if so, which do we respect more? Certainly we’ll see the same paradoxical views of the bourgeois and the proletariat; one awarding the path taken, the other the destination arrived at. Which is it? Does it come down to, then, where we (the audience of greatness) come from? I have a hard time with that. My brain wants to impose a uniform right, something that shines as good, better, best in every circumstance. Perhaps this need to contrast is born of our desire to be great ourselves, out of a need to understand how to accomplish it. Or maybe its just an exercise in futility to try and get it at all. My point.
Could there be a 3rd view, a time where Jordan just was. Where Bill Gates just did. Where Franklin just existed. And the focused improvement stopped. A time where, they were great, and existing in their greatness was a constant improvement, not born of a need to achieve, but of a pure existence. I doubt I’ll ever have the chance to ask the men I mention above, but the concept still intrigues me. I feel that if we arrived at that state, a place where by our very natural existence we improved, not consciously, but organically, that anyone could then shine as brilliant. I have to impose another opinion, that in the times where we organically shine, the light shines brighter than anything we could have worked at, anything we could have drawn up with our consciousness.
I think of my times on the basketball court, when I’m firing on all cylinders, and sometimes I rethink the things I did in the moment, the times when I’m playing out of my head and just existing. Those are the moments that make me feel this way, when I KNOW there is no way I could ever have intended to do the things I was doing, they just happened. Now, basketball is one of my creative outlets, but pick yours. Think of something that you just fall completely into; art, music, video games, poker, sports, flirting, sales, learning, anything. I only have my experiences to draw on, but don’t you love it when you just ARE in your element? Don’t you feel like the things that come out of it are so much grander than anytime you push yourself to do it?
Obviously you had to push to get to that state of existence, but the greatest greatness truly comes out when you just flow, when you just exist. Perhaps I’m being redundant, but this is what I want to aim at. I want to just be. So what’s the challenge, what’s the hardship? Well, I could always be wrong. And there is an obvious oxymoronical quality built into this view; aiming at greatness by not aiming at all….I didn’t say it was perfect nor complete. However, I want to try and cling to this view, to trend that direction, to let my life BE great, not work to make it great. Lets see what happens.
