greatness

we don't do great things anymore.

as humans, as a species, we have begun to lose our aspirations to become great, to rise above the fray and be known to all others as someone who did something of worth. that will be remembered. we have lost our belief that years from now, people will remember our names because of something that we created, that we said.

and why should we believe that we'll be remembered? as a collective, our attention doesn't span more than across a couple weeks. we are quick to forget and eager to move on. we don't like dwelling on things that make us stop in our tracks, that make us uncomfortable or, heaven forbid, that make us think. we prefer to delve into the swell of the internet and drown ourselves in the endless deeps of the frivolous drivel of reality tv and idle celebrity gossip.

we used to concern ourselves with things of import. we used to be honestly involved with the way our country was run and the state of our economy because at one time we felt that there was something that we could actually do about it.

there was a time where we strived to be more than ourselves, to think beyond what will come the next day. once, we read the works of our modest modern philosophers and saw how it applied to us, how the stories were our own. we began to recognize our folly and to make reparations.

but now, we look only to fill the time. to recycle the works of ages gone in order to make some abomination unworthy of actual existence. there are nuggets of gold among the rough, tiny lights that struggle to illuminate the heavy gloom. and in truth, we still read those stories, study those wisdoms that those before saw as greatness. but to us, they are the voices of the past, screaming at us. and so we drown out the noise. because it's only a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

we no longer believe that we can do great things because we don't see it happen anymore. we think they're a thing of the past and everyone tells us such achievements exist only there. but no one dictates our own destiny but ourselves. no one can tell us we can't do something.

but still, we don't do great things anymore. and it's our own fault.