15 Dec 2010

Our own insignificance - from Barlasch of the Guard.

There are quite a number of people who get through life without realising their own insignificance. Ninety-nine out of hundred persons signify nothing, and the hundreth is usually so absorbed in the message which he has been sent into the world to deliver, that he loses sight of the messenger altogether.
By a merciful dispensation of Providence we are permitted to bustle about in our own immediate little circle like an ant, running hither and thither with the sublime conceit of that insect. We pick up, as he does, a burden which on close inspection, will be found to be absolutely valueless, Something that somebody else has thrown away. We hoist it over obstructions while there is usually a short way round. We fret and sweat and fume. Then we drop the burden and rush off at a tangent to pick up another. We write letters to our friends explaining to them what we are about. We even indite diaries to be read by goodness knows whom, explaining to ourselves what we have been doing. Sometimes we find something that really looks valueable, and rush to our particular ant heap with it, while our neightbours pause and watch us. But they really do not care; and if the rumour of our discovery reach so far as the next ant-heap, the bustlers there are so indifferent, though a few may feel a passing pang of jealousy. They may perhaps remember our name, and will soon forget what we discovered - which is Fame. While we are falling over each other to attain this, and dying to tell each other what it feels like when we have it, or think we have it, let us pause for a moment and think ....

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