Some of the greatest changes in history have been the consequence of the fact that people do not live very long. Alexander would never have been in so much of a hurry if he had had a couple of hundred years to live. Napoleon wouldn’t have chaffed at the bit to conquer Europe if he could have planned over a hundred years. Even thinkers like Lenin had to see the changes they wanted and thought necessary, be carried out whilst they lived.
We can see the same things happening with tyrants today who won’t relinquish power because the focus of their lives is the power – not the changes they wanted to see brought about when they took power. And to a great extent the rush to get things done – to be a millionaire by this date or that – is all about the shortness of human life. And in the rush, is the tragedy and the mistake.
Rather we should be teaching people that we are part of an historical process, whatever our egos may wish, and that if we have one word, one idea that someone can run with in a thousands years from now, we have done our job. Like the great stories from Homer to Charlemagne, added to and expanded by different voices and writers down the centuries until they become a part of the very fabric of a nation.
The whole of time is the unseen liquid in which the compound called humanity is being mixed.