…my work was so long so little appreciated that I learned not to care a scrap for either blame or praise. —James Murray—
It’s instructive to look at important figures of the past.So many have fallen into utter obscurity, and people who were quite obscure are now seen as important.
Who remembers news columnists or many best-selling writers of forty years ago? Yet at the time, their names were on everyone’s lips.
We have an idea that life has speeded up, that history has accelerated, in that we live faster now than people did in the past. But this is a function of the media;
the experiences we hear about are other people’s experiences. We know more, sooner, about more people; We know when royal babies are born and when border wars are fought. But these events have always occurred, and have always totally engrossed those who are immediately concerned. Their true import for the world, history must discover.
When we have a staunch purpose, it’s possible to ignore the praise or blame of those we don’t care about. Whereas people who bloom early may be early sidetracked, the pace of our own lives is under our direction; so is our real significance in the lives of others.
Obscurity can be a blessing. It will never warp my values.