Living Greats

By Roger Colins

Conan Doyle is easily one of my top ten writers of all time but I have to disagree with him on one point. Holmes once declared  how surprising it was that Watson's feeble mind stimulated his own superior, cognitive powers. I hope it was just an eccentricity of Holmes'. Surely one has to find better men to learn examples from and perhaps that was Doyle's intention as in the writer's mind, there was no better man than Holmes (asides his own brother). There are living men I can respect, those I admire and those that display unparalleled genius but none would I label 'a great'. Philosophers are generally understood to be greats but this attribute appears to be cold and impractical. Artists can quite easily be determined as greats as their work does not have to be sifted through. Within a single piece, one can see into an artists very soul and the audience can quickly decide for themselves. Scientists, inventors and pioneers aren't usually termed great as they get the genius label. Even though they may indeed be great men, it takes something else to make the bridge to something more. This is why I came to Doyle. A great seems able to bundle all of these faculties together and produce work that cannot be readily described with the usual set of adjectives. Hence, we make do with great. Such as the artist's work only ever gets sold when he's dead, it appears too the great men are only ever awarded the moniker when they take the final step beyond. There is however, one small query. In contemplating the great men of recent times, I wonder if their peers ever thought of them as great men while still alive. I confess that it is of my own opinion that although I can envisage several celebrity status personalities that are most certainly regarded as great by the general public, my own impression is far more sceptical or elitist; Winston Churchill, Albert Einstein and Charles Darwin spring to mind. Were any of them considered a great while still alive I wonder. Vincent Van Gogh is a too easy an example and public opinion really can't be accounted for. Friends and family, colleagues of the men would be able to say as much and one would hope they could give an honest account of whether or not said person was deemed great by his or her peers. I suppose we will have to wait for it to actually happen, a true great to come on scene before we will ever know. _____________________________________________________________________

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