Dedication

In class today, some of my fellow students presented a slideshow on Great Thinkers. They covered musicians, writers, and philosophers. The task was to get the rest of us thinking about how we classify and identify great thinkers. Ideas bounced around rather lethargically. It's snowing again here, and everyone is ready for winter to end. (In fact, I'm wearing floral pants in protest of the weather.)

But eventually, and with some prodding from our professor, we came upon what I feel is the greatest attribute of all the people they mentioned: Dedication.

Never mind how much money someone has, the amount of free time they can spend stroking their beard and smoking their pipe, or whether they had a traumatic childhood; the real common denominator amongst all great thinkers is dedication to their craft.

Especially now, we all have access to almost any type of information we want. A quick internet search will reveal mountains of information out there. Also, almost every town has a library within 20 miles of it. I know, I know, libraries. The travel time, the cost of gas, the walking up stairs and across floors - it's harder than Google. But the great thing about libraries is the information in the published books and articles is already fact checked and edited for you to rely on.

Take Bach, Aristotle, or (my favorite) Virginia Woolf - all were dedicated.

Whether you're dedicated to writing, music, philosophy, technology, or any other field, it is dedication to your particular task that will prove to be beneficial in the long run. Do some internet searching, read blogs and ebooks and how-tos, or go to the library and find your section. While you are there, know that, yes, dedication to one thing will mean that something else will have to suffer. Say you spend all your time perfecting your novel. In essence, your gardening or cooking will suffer in turn. This is the way of the world. With something good - a change for the better - comes a sacrifice. However, I want to point your attention to a quote I heard the other day. It goes something like,

"Good is the enemy of Great."

It is a modern spin on an old Voltaire quote from the 1700s. Basically, it is saying that doing something so that it is "good" is getting in the way of pursuing it until it is "great." And you'll only come to be a Great Thinker through dedication. The internet has negated our excuse to lack of resources. We can no longer stop when it's good enough. We must strive for greatness. Otherwise, we'll go nowhere.

I leave you to ponder.