I happened across a list of famous last words.
This one just kills me.
"I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have." Leonardo da Vinci, artist, d. 1519
My God.
Here's a guy in the top 5 greatest geniuses in all of history. He changed the world in so many ways it's ridiculous. Besides his towering artistic achievement (the Mona Lisa alone is the most famous and valuable painting in the world) he invented helicopters and submarines 500 years before they could be built, but when they were they used his designs. That's just two small examples. He was famous in his own lifetime but 600 years later his name is still foremost among artists, philosophers and scientists and yet his final dying thought was of his utter failure to achieve his own potential.
Wow.
Anyway, maybe that will give you some idea why I'm so endlessly unsatisfied with my own accomplishments, meager as they are. When you aspire to that level of greatness it's pretty freakin hard to measure up. Meanwhile, most people never even think about it, so there you go.
"I have offended God and mankind because my work did not reach the quality it should have." Leonardo da Vinci, artist, d. 1519
My God.
Here's a guy in the top 5 greatest geniuses in all of history. He changed the world in so many ways it's ridiculous. Besides his towering artistic achievement (the Mona Lisa alone is the most famous and valuable painting in the world) he invented helicopters and submarines 500 years before they could be built, but when they were they used his designs. That's just two small examples. He was famous in his own lifetime but 600 years later his name is still foremost among artists, philosophers and scientists and yet his final dying thought was of his utter failure to achieve his own potential.
Wow.
Anyway, maybe that will give you some idea why I'm so endlessly unsatisfied with my own accomplishments, meager as they are. When you aspire to that level of greatness it's pretty freakin hard to measure up. Meanwhile, most people never even think about it, so there you go.
4 comments:
ah, the inky mutterings of depression...trying to live up to impossibly lofty goals...I know from whence you speak. My solution is to lie down.
ok, i feel a little but more accepting of my own weirdness now. thanks.
I hear ya!!!
But DaVinci was considered a heretic in his day - scorned ... but aren't all great people in the world???
History has repeatedly chastised brilliance, abhoring change.... Its in our nature to hate those that we don't understand...
DaVinci, VanGogh, Beethoven, Galileo.... all of them brilliant.. all of them hated for what they understood and we could not! :)
Humm... He was probably feeling guilty of something (and probably without real reason)... Life at those times was a lot weirder than right now, imo... I agree with alro, what a 'normal' brain can't processed is still too often considered as a danger, danger for the quietness, danger for the power in place... just think about electric car... they could exist on a large scale, but this could disturb the petroleum based economy...
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