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 AUTHOR = ONYENACHIA  MUNACHIM

Inspiration is simply the infusing of motive spirit to matter. The matter may be an animal or it may be a man. The spirit on the other hand is the impetus of an admired end. 

Often, it is one man’s mind that supplies the spirit. The mind of a great man can exert tremendous influence upon contemporaries. They are noted for some special characteristic. Their peers wonder, ‘What is it with him – he is so different!’ And so he is. The difference lies in his unique experience and worldview. He experiences life a little too intensely. According to Hans Christian Andersen, a great man has to ‘suffer terrible things, and then get to be famous.’ This is true enough. Andersen himself ‘suffered terrible things’. He became destitute rather early and endured the grimmest version of poverty, but he had a knack for attracting help to himself – which was his saving grace. Great men always have a saving grace; Benevolence gives it them to help in their arduous task, for becoming great is arduous indeed. Generally, they have to learn and they often think it a waste of time; long hours spent among jealous classmates and teachers; but society needs them and so helps in one way at least – scholarship; they often get financial aid. They need money for their unusual exploits. Some are a little too emotional, others a little too thoughtful; the rest are strong. But even the drab, the dull and the supine can have their shot at loftiness – it all lies in the palms of Destiny. One thing though – the world will not lack for great men. But there are cadres of them. There are the outlandish, which are the greatest of the great. One can class Jesus, Mohammed, Buddha and Moses in this genre; then there are the simply great, three of whom are Socrates, Christopher Columbus and Karl Marx. Last of all, there are the notorious, such as Stalin, Nelson Mandela and Hitler. The names stretch and the classifications vary. 

Greatness transcends race. That one is white does not mean that he will be greater, and that one is black does not mean that he will be less. Two boys growing up in the suburbs or in downtown Manhattan, one black and the other white, may end up this way – the black becomes white with the luster of greatness and the white becomes black with the gloom of defeat. It is in this regard that Michael Jackson’s plastic surgery is valueless. Richard Wright is as great for example as James Monroe or even George Washington. 

Greatness transcends creeds. Even though Christianity has in recent times become a source of political power, Mahatma Gandhi Hindu that he was, was truly a great man. Islam, another religion with tremendous following, offers opportunities for greatness. Even atheists can be great. It is on record for instance that Nebuchadnezzar worshipped himself, and so did Stalin. 

Greatness transcends polities. Even though it is true that politicians can achieve greatness readily as did Napoleon Bonaparte, George Washington, Nelson Mandela and Benjamin Franklin, there are two other primary sources of greatness – individual knack, and spirituality. Genius, another name for knack, has given to the world her inventors, poets, scholars and jurists. Einstein, Shakespeare, Homer, Wright and Chaucer are examples. But spirituality has not given the world less: Jesus, Confucius, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Teresa and Krishna. Greatness is the individual and not the polity. Napoleon once arrogantly quipped, ‘L’etat c’est moi!’ (‘I am the state’). Psychologists have also enthused that it is the individual acting in society that informs the subject of social psychology. Men and women in their ordinary trial at life end up better or worse for it. Shakespeare has called life stage. One may see it as a merry-go-round. Martin Luther King Junior saw it as a dream. 

And the dream of greatness starts with a birth. It has been said that at the birth of the great St. Bridget, the Virgin Mary appeared to a few saying, ‘A girl has just been born; her voice will be heard by the whole world.’ This gives credence to the belief in predestination, that great men are ordained from the start to be so. 

Perhaps. Records of the lives of great men show that a number of them felt they were living according to a pre-prepared script. Their greatness was a push and not simply an aspiration. They had to be great – they were obsessed by it. The chick-and-egg quandary in any case does not answer the question, What came first – the compulsion or the ambition? For great men are nearly always ambitious, and this is the second step. 

Ever seen that starry-eyed child? He looks a little too often at the skies and is locked in his dreams. He admires the big ones. ‘Mama,’ he says – he is always restless – ‘I think I will be this and that, and that other too!’ But the mother is busy with her soup. One must not in any case confuse a precocious child destined for loftiness with a scheming youth whose jealousy and vain ambition run him to a deluded chasing the wind. The one is gifted and has started early; the other is bitter and can kill. Morning they say shows the day as childhood shows the man. 

Greatness translates ambition into action as a necessary third step. Men and women destined for the heights see their dreams through the odds. It is about them that this is said: ‘Tough times never last, but tough people do.’ An inspirational story is in this regard told of  George Bush. ‘George Bush was 18 years old in 1942 when he enlisted in the US Navy. He was still 18 when he got his wings and became the youngest pilot in the Navy at the time. The World War 2 was raging and the United States was very much in the picture. On 2^nd September, 1944, Bush’s squadron took part in launching an attack on Chichi Jima Island. Bush was flying towards the island to bomb a Japanese communications centre when a heavy antiaircraft fire hit his plane. It was, he said, ‘as if a massive fist had crunched into the belly of the plane’. The jolt was terrible. Smoke started pouring into the cockpit, but Bush was undaunted. He continued diving and eventually dropped his four 225-kilo bombs on target. 

‘When he cleared out to sea he jumped out, but his parachute ripped open and he fell fast into the ocean. Down but not out, he climbed into the rubber raft of the torn parachute and paddled away from Chichi Jima. Many hours crawled past before an American submarine, the USS Finback, came to rescue him. Bush was later honored with a Distinguishing Flying Cross for a successful completion of his mission. 

‘In view of his frightening experience, Bush could have chosen to go home. He did not. Rather, after a few days’ rest in Hawaii, he went back to San Jacinto – the light aircraft carrier. He bombed more enemy spots in Manila Bay and the Philippines. All together he logged 1 228 hours of flying time, 126 carrier landings and 58 combat missions! Terrific, isn’t it? A very impressive record, that is. But it demands a stick-through-to the end guts to achieve the record.’ 

Greatness is like that. You drop your loftiness bombs on target and receive great crunches in the belly. But hey, you only need a few days in the Hawaii of self-reappraisal for you to go on being great. 

Great men evolve. They learn from their experiences and convert the worst of them to the most joyful successes. Greatness is life itself. This means that greatness is not the compendium of all what a man has done marvelously, but living life to the fascination of others. Great men do small things greatly, but mean men do great things meanly. A great man is like a lighthouse; society may be blind to his efforts, but never to his loftiness – it screams without restraint. Truth acknowledges it, but not self deceit. In Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, only a little lad was honest enough to spot the ruler’s nakedness. 

A great man is a revolution in himself. He isolates the world and commands it to spin. Rotate O earth! he cries, and the world begins to turn gingerly at first and then with the gusto that is himself; round and round and round it does not stop, not until the great man does. People have wondered what keeps the lofty going – themselves. 

The Niagara is beautiful, but so is Michelangelo’s Mona Lisa. Pablo Picasso once stated, ‘If  I were to be in the army I would be a general. If I were to be a priest I would end up the pope; but I am an artist, and so am Pablo Picasso.’ The Niagara falls in a defined route; so does the river of a great man’s existence. 

Great men are like God. Indeed they are God. It has been said that a country is the mind of the most powerful man. Scholars have likened this to a magazine that is almost entirely the mind of its publisher. Great books are the brain children of great men. The world is nearly always the creativity of its leading individuals. 

Think of the ideologies that have shaped the lives of men – capitalism, socialism, apartheid and so on – it was great men who set them in motion. Lenin with his Historical materialism and the consequent Dictatorship of the proletariat was the precursor of an independent Soviet regime that Stalin inherited by sheer personal force. Christopher Columbus’ doggedness led to the founding of America, known naively then as the New world. But that is not all. It is in the minds of great men that circuses and songs; books and pictures; men and visions; polities and empires, are first created. It is also there that they are crafted and planned. It is there that they are called forth like Lazarus from a tomb, where he had been stowed four days. ‘Bean porridge hot,’ they say, ‘bean porridge cold; bean porridge in the pot, nine days old. Some like it hot, some like it cold; some like it in the pot nine days old.’ The same is true for great ideas in the minds of their initiators. 

Great men influence the end of humanity, and appear to always have. If there is God, He must respect the wishes of great men as do the rest of us, especially those who control vast political space. From the time of Moses until now it has been one grand tale of authority. Jesus turned the world around, dividing time into two. Who will be the third pillar of life – me? 

But great men will also face aloneness. Their peers may avoid their company. Feeling insecure around him, they allow him as it were to lead himself, and to be his own company. The logic is, if he thinks he is great, let him humor himself. Our darling great man may shed many lonely tears in his closet, unless he becomes toughened by it or has married a wife as great as he.