Legendary, Great, Good, Ready to Go...

October Reflections - slide 3

“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago

You know how it goes—one moment you’re the employee of the month, sipping from a glory cup, and the next, you’re sitting on a carpet facing an unofficial committee about your overzealous vacation days. One day, you’re the person of their dreams; the next, you’re receiving a bad review on “Rotten Tomatoes”. One moment, everyone’s saying you’re a great friend, and the next, you’re being told to search for your star, conveniently located a trillion light-years away.

Life, it seems, has a way of keeping us humble…

Reach for the stars, dream big — all sort of songs… Who hasn’t been fascinated by stories of great people? Those legendary figures who shaped history—Gandhi, Einstein, Marie Curie, Michael Jordan—who seem larger than life, embodying qualities we’re told define greatness? It seems that not only primary-age children believe in magical qualities a select few were born with, some extraordinary ability that set them apart. But what if greatness is a mere illusion of light, as distant as the stars?

Think of Gandhi. We remember him as the peaceful leader who led India’s fight for independence through nonviolence—a saint-like figure whose philosophy inspired movements across the world. But Gandhi’s legacy isn’t without contradictions. Early in life, he was a lawyer who struggled with stage fright and self-doubt, and his initial efforts in South Africa were marked by failure and frustration. He faced racism, but he also perpetuated it, at times holding deeply prejudiced views toward Black Africans.

His personal life, too, reveals complexity. Gandhi, revered for his ideals of compassion and justice, was known to have been abusive toward his wife and held controversial, even troubling, views on sex and morality. These contradictions challenge the narrative of Gandhi as a flawless hero.

Albert Einstein’s story is another one that challenges our understanding of greatness. Yes, this Jew who faced anti-Semitism in Germany gave us the theory of relativity, reshaping our understanding of the universe. And then, there’s the moral complexity: his work laid the theoretical groundwork for the Manhattan Project, which resulted in the development of two types of atomic bombs: one using uranium-235 (the bomb dropped on Hiroshima) and the other using plutonium-239 (the bomb dropped on Nagasaki). Both bombs operated on the principle of nuclear fission, which Einstein's earlier theories had helped elucidate. Did we really need the atomic bomb that followed Einstein’s breakthroughs? It’s a sobering thought—that one of the greatest scientific discoveries led to both incredible progress and terrifying destruction. This is the dual nature of greatness…

That question—what does it mean to be good?—is one that psychologists have explored for years. Take Erich Fromm. In his book The Heart of Man, Fromm argued that the capacity for both good and evil lies within every person. He wrote, "Man is the only animal for whom his own existence is a problem which he has to solve." For Fromm, the pursuit of greatness wasn’t about power or success but about solving the riddle of human existence: how do we live ethically and authentically? To be great, in Fromm’s eyes, was to choose love, empathy, and humanity over selfishness and greed. But that’s not an easy choice, and even the greatest among us—Gandhi, Einstein, Curie—struggled with it.

Look at Marie Curie-Sklodowska. She’s celebrated as a scientific trailblazer, the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and the only person to receive Nobel Prizes in two different sciences. Her legacy is one of brilliance and sacrifice. Her groundbreaking research on radioactivity revolutionised science but came at a personal cost, exposing her to dangerous radiation that ultimately led to her early death.

Yet, Curie’s private life didn’t escape public scrutiny either. Her romantic involvement with Paul Langevin, a married physicist, became a scandal in the early 1910s. Some saw her as a woman seeking love and happiness, while others condemned her for the affair, especially in light of the rigid moral standards of the time. The tabloids were relentless, portraying her as a homewrecker and casting a shadow over her accomplishments. Even as she revolutionised science, society judged her by its narrow expectations.

We see this complex idea of greatness in other fields too. Michael Jordan, for instance, is universally recognised as one of the greatest athletes of all time. But his career wasn’t just a series of highlight reels and championship wins. His success was built on an obsessive drive, the willingness to fail, and an intense focus on personal growth. He was cut from his high school basketball team, faced repeated setbacks, but kept pushing himself to improve. His greatness, in many ways, lies in his relentless pursuit of becoming better, not just in his natural talent. Jordan himself once said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Greatness, it seems, often comes from failure and perseverance. But it’s also tied to the ethical choices we make along the way. In psychology, this idea is supported by the work of psychologist Jonathan Haidt, who explored the complexities of human morality in his book The Righteous Mind. Haidt argues that we are all capable of both good and evil, and that greatness can sometimes blur the lines between the two. As he puts it, "Human beings are 90 percent chimp and 10 percent bee." We have selfish tendencies, but we’re also wired for cooperation and altruism. In other words, greatness doesn’t come from being perfect or morally flawless—it comes from our ability to wrestle with our inner conflicts and choose the collective good, personal happiness or other standards.

Psychologist Philip Zimbardo’s famous Stanford prison experiment revealed how even ordinary people can be led to commit acts of cruelty under certain conditions. His concept of the "Lucifer Effect" shows that good people can do terrible things when placed in positions of power or under extreme pressure. So, is greatness truly about what we achieve, or is it more about how we maintain our humanity?

Perhaps the key to understanding greatness, if such exists at all, lies in humility and reflection. It’s not merely about achieving perfection but grappling with our flaws, recognising the profound impact of our actions, and striving for something bigger than ourselves. Could it be that what defines figures like Gandhi, Einstein, Curie, and even Michael Jordan as truly great is not their lack of faults, but rather their ability to confront their imperfections and use them as fuel for their pursuit of what they believed to be good?

In the words of Erich Fromm, “Only the person who has faith in himself is able to be faithful to others.” This quote begs us to consider: what does it mean to truly have faith in oneself? Is it merely self-confidence, or is it a deeper acknowledgement of our shared humanity and vulnerabilities? Perhaps the essence of goodness isn’t the absence of flaws, but the courage to try our best to be faithful—to ourselves, to our values, and to the greater good, even when it’s difficult.

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