People have aspired and will always aspire to create out of their intellect and creativity something palpable, audible, and/or visible that would outlive their own mortality, striving to make the currently existing populace and the next generation gawk at the substantial outcome of their ingenuity. But not all of these ambitious fellas come to bring all of their ubiquitous passions into fruition. Some of them have the willpower and genius to realize them but they are always met by unexplainable frustration and they consequently “miss the bus,” among with the other failures.
Failure is JUST a concept of not achieving enough to not meet the expectations of the mass, expectations that evaluate the worth of a person based on the ambiguous and hierarchical yardsticks of society. A writer is judged by the number of his avid readers, the literary awards he has amassed, the financial remunerations for his imaginative efforts, or the distinction he made for himself among critics and the intelligentsia. What people don't comprehend is that worth is inherent since humans naturally have equal moral status. Their negative bias enables them to see the dreams unfulfilled, the projects undone, the tangible works unaccomplished. They never see the trifling goodness we have showered upon humanity. They expect us to transcend above those unpleasing frivolities hurriedly when what we enjoy is the journey toward our full self-development itself and not those by-products which those people are concentrating in— money, fame, power, etc.
Why do those “failures” like the pneumonic painter in O. Henry's short story never made a single “artwork” for people to remember him by? Perhaps it's because they're not fervently inspired, they have another destiny to fulfill, they waiting for the conducive state for the creative venture till it's too late, or maybe, they think it's what they're really passionate about when that's not what their souls want to do and they're just driven by some ignoble cause (such as envy).
But maybe, an aspiring painter isn't meant to create a displayable sketch of a landscape or a poet to publish volumes of odes and sonnets. What if, their life is their masterpiece? It doesn't solely take an enlightening book or a coated canvas to change someone's life for the better. Most of the time, it's the trifles that matter; a smile, an accidental meaty statement you uttered at a stranger, or simple act of kindness can nudge someone to pursue their ambitions, renounce a detrimental vice, see life in fresh light, or pull them out from the depths of extensive degeneration. Other people don't see such things. It's the whole person that interests me, not just his career, his private properties, his worldviews, or his principles. We will come to contemplate man's complexity if we won't limit our understanding of just a few aspects of their existence and personality.
As we travel towards unfolding our fullest capabilities, we must also seek to live virtuously, touching everyone down the path with the flaming ripples of inspiration to help them achieve their own personal destiny. “He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize,” so said Oscar Wilde.
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