SantiagoBear

11:38 pm: "A Great Man"
Ricardo Claro, 1934 - 2008, died early this morning of a heart attack.

Who, you may ask, the HELL, is Ricardo Claro?

Well, he was one of the richest men in Chile. He leaves behind business with a combined value of over US$2 bn.  He is being lamented by politicians and businessmen/women all over the world.  "A great man, and a great entrepreneur."

I was talking to a GMAT student after his class, and we were discussing Don Ricardo.  We discussed the fact that everybody - - EVERYBODY - - dies.  A death is not a tragedy. It's a fact of life. If the man who owns the almacén at the end of the block, where I buy my daily bread, were to die, his death would mean a great deal more to me than the "tragic loss" of Ricardo Claro. I shall die, and when I do, very few people will notice. Only those who might read these blatherings, or those whom I count as my friends will care.

Well, my creditors will care, too, but that's a different matter.

And we asked one another:  Was he truly great?  What makes a man "great?"

I really have no answer. I can name some examples of people whom I consider to be (or have been) great. The obvious occur:  Ghandi. Meir. Pope John Paul II. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. These are people who have changed the world. You might not agree with what they did or what they stood for, but you cannot deny their impact on the world.

I count Paul Newman as a great man.

"Paul Newman?  The ACTOR?"

No. Paul Newman the humanitarian.  When he was approached to lend his name to a line of food products, he was offered (as would be required, usually) an endorsement fee.  We can argue whether or not Newman's Own products were actually his recipes, or whether or not he even used them.  I don't care about that. 

What I DO care about is, when the time came to collect his endorsement fee, he said to himself, "I have more money than I'll ever need.  This product is sold as having a percentages of the profits donated to charity.  The only MORAL thing to do with this fee is to give it away."

He never made a red cent on any of Newman's Own products. He gave it all to charity.

He didn't have to.  He just did. It was a LOT of money. And he did it solely through his sense of morality.

This, to me, makes a great man.

I have a bit of a challenge for my readers, here.  Tell us about a great man, or woman, in your opinion.  What makes (or made) him/her great?  Why does this person come to mind when you think of greatness?

I find the topic interesting, on the day of the death of a Great Chilean . . . of whom very few people in the world have ever heard.


Ozymandius - - by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.