Porthole

Greatness is...

...being the best you can be.

I say this because if you aren't your very best than you'll never be great. If you are, you may only be good but that's okay. Not all of us are gifted with greatness.

It's possible to be a great gardener but not a great banker. As a gardener I am not great, just good. But money and me? Don't ask. I've never totally understood it.

And if I wouldn't have given up singing decades ago I might not be great but at least I might do better than croaking.

Now, we could talk about great movies or great leaders or great ideas. But we would end up with a discussion over how that's defined.

I think Akira Kurasawa's 1950 Rashōmon is one of the greatest movies of all time. But if you haven't seen it how can we talk about the Rashomon effect and how the movie influenced the entire film industry since?

Leader? I'll go with Mahatma Ghandi who influenced thousands of others to resolve issues in non-violent ways. There is no doubt that Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela followed in his footsteps.

Ideas... in science Tesla and Turing were not as well known as Edison and Einstein but there's always plenty of room for more ideas. Even ancient ideas like the numeral 0 and the mathematics of algebra and algorithms have been tweaked by many cultures. And who invented the wheel? Or learned how to tame fire?

But what does that have to do with me?

I can only be the best that I can be. I may not be great, but there is no other road to greatness.

Today's prompt was the "weekend". I'll skip that as most every weekend is the same when I'm home. I travel August 10th, a Saturday... will that count?

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