I wonder sometimes, as I lay awake in the darkness, if the Great Ones ever feel the way we do. Do they ever consider the actions they have taken, seeing the unexpected outcomes, and despair that what they worked so hard to achieve, is collapsing before their eyes.
I'm not talking about the madmen like Hitler, who built dreams on selfish motives, but then despaired when their greedy desires were brought undone. No, I am talking about our icons, our beacons of light, who achieved impossible dreams for the good of their fellow man. Did these giants ever look at what they were doing, or had done, and thought; "This is terrible. I should never have started"
Had Martin Luther King Jr, survived into old age, would he have looked at the Los Angeles riots in the 1980's, and felt despair at how little progress had been made?
If John F Kennedy had not died on that day in Dallas, I wonder if he would have thought that his efforts to remove the troops from Vietnam, should have brought better outcomes than the mess that remained in Laos, Cambodia,and of course, Vietnam.
I feel despair. I feel a tremendous sense of helplessness, and hopelessness when something I have worked so hard on, something I have poured love and effort into, is falling into chaotic fragments before my eyes. Surely the Great Ones have experienced this too.
Or are they certain, so certain of their mission, their goal, their destiny, that they have no doubt of their success? Perhaps this confidence is what makes them Great. They know they are born to this success, and so they go on, against all the obstacles, and achieve those things which only the select few can achieve.
Perhaps, though, in the early hours of the day, when the darkness wraps itself around our minds, and we look at our endeavours without the optimism that daylight can lend to our ideas, perhaps then, the Mighty among us look at themselves and despair, and wonder if all their efforts are for nothing.
If they do this, then I hope they take some small comfort in knowing that, sometimes I am awake too; despairing.
Are you?
