The constant battle between following-one's-dreams and working-hard-will-lead-to-success baffles me. I am stuck between the two. People are split between the two. Some say that as long as you work hard, you succeed. Others say that if you're following your dreams, you succeed.
Perhaps, their definition of success differs. Comfort v/s Fame? The whole division of those who want to matter and those who want to survive, that John Green redundantly brings up in his novels. I guess those who want comfort, those who deem hard work to be the key are the ones who want to survive this world. While, those who want fame, those who follow their dreams are the ones who want to matter. Of course this is a very general and highly unscientific division of people.
But how true are Green's words when he says that there will come a time when none of us will matter. A time when Shakespeare will be forgotten, not because someone more important came along, but because no one to remember him will exist.
Our cognitive capability deceives us into thinking that the universe was created for us (human beings). Or maybe it's just that we wish to be important. But in reality, we are infinitesimal. We are nothing to the universe. It needs not acknowledge our existence. If a hypervelocity star decides to blow apart the earth into tiny bits and pieces, it shall. It won't stop for us petty human beings. We are inconsequential, or as we so graciously put it-collateral damage. The star won't care if Shakespeare could write in iambic pentameter or if someone in
And yet this is a melancholic thought; that the brilliance of Einstein, the art of Picasso, the music of Beethoven, the leadership of Alexander the Great, the stories of Charles Dickens, the words of Robert Frost, the cat paradox of Schrödinger, will all cease to exist. How narcissistic are we who can never stop pondering about our future when a day will come that we might have not existed at all. We will not matter.
