History's Honourable Heroes.

“It Always Seems Impossible Until It’s Done”

Nelson Mandela

One thing I have noticed about great historical figures is that they have a lot of common characteristics. They are all stubborn, ruthless and a bit reckless. 

I guess you have to be to in order to achieve greatness.

Achievements of extraordinary magnitude rarely come to ordinary people.  They are reserved for the slightly mad, slightly eccentric lot, for they require fighting for what one believes in against all odds.

Ordinary individuals, at some point or the other during their struggle will accept the futility of their efforts and will be persuaded by logic and reasoning to back off. It is only those who relentlessly peruse their ambition or dream against all opposition are the ones that emerge victorious.

Whether obstinacy is a mark of brilliance or a sign of idiocy, depends wholly on the outcome. If the result is successful then those behind it are considered to be geniuses of highest degree, visionaries who saw what others could not see and went for it with everything they had.

Or

Complete fools who risked and lost everything on a foolhardy endeavor, who did not know when to back off when the time was ripe.

It is the final result of their efforts that determines how history will view them in times to come. 
But what factors affect the outcome of the efforts? 
Several, but two among them, possibly more so than others.

Grit and luck!

You use your grit to push your luck to its limits. Even the slightest lacking in either of the two could easily turn success into failure.

That is my opinion. Anyone or everyone has my permission to disagree with it.

So from where is all this musing coming from anyway?

It so happens that I just finished watching “Rise of Empires, OTTOMANS” on Netflix.  

Mehmet, the Conqueror has always been this heroic figure in Islamic history who achieved the seemingly unachievable. 

His conquests and his achievements are legendary.

But Mehmet' s character: strong, highly driven and obsessed with what he wishes to achieve, is by no means without flaws.

He is firm in his belief, determined to let nothing stop him from conquering Constantinople, the magnificent City that so many before him had aspired to conquer.

But firm and determined individuals are also at times merciless. In order to fulfil a higher purpose, they sometimes have to forgo the human element and softer side of themselves.

Felt a similarity between Mehmet II and another character that I read about some time ago.

Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, who forged an empire from amongst a disunited group of nations and kings.

   Imperial Coronation of Charlemagne, by Friedrich Kaulbach

Both men left countless dead in pursuit of their ambition, and yet that is not what we remember them for.  Because the magnitude of what they achieved, the Dynasties and Empires they forged, overshadowed whatever shortcomings they might have had.
Mehmet II and Charlemagne are by no means the only two such flawed characters. History is full of such men and perhaps a few women as well, who share these traits.

To be honest, it was their flaws that made them great and helped them achieve their destinies.

A more merciful ruler, mindful of the death and destruction his ambition could lead to would not go to this length, would not cross that line which needed to be crossed in order to achieve his purpose.

The truth is that countless aspire to have achievements that would immortalise their name in history or the very least count them as among the “successes” of their own times. But do the countless have what it takes to get there or more importantly, are they willing to be that flawed in order to get what they so desire?

That is where most of us normal, regular human beings fall short.

I would say let greatness be a virtue of great men that God hath created for this purpose and let the rest of us be good and normal human beings that we are meant to be.