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> Why would I spend my free time working toward “greatness”

you don't have to. But then don't wonder why you never achieve greatness. Of course, life isn't about greatness.



If you can be a great parent, you’ve already achieved greatness from my point of view. And perhaps easier to achieve.


Is Franz Kafka best remembered for how good he was at his day job?


And he died at 40 and this was his personal life:

> Kafka never married. According to Brod, Kafka was "tortured" by sexual desire … his life was full of "incessant womanising" and that he was filled with a fear of "sexual failure".[64] Kafka visited brothels for most of his adult life[65][66][67] and was interested in pornography.[63] In addition, he had close relationships with several women during his lifetime. On 13 August 1912, Kafka met Felice Bauer, a relative of Brod's, who worked in Berlin as a representative of a dictaphone company. A week after the meeting at Brod's home, Kafka wrote in his diary:


OK… neither here nor there for my point that nobody remembers him as a clerk.


Isn’t that the point though? Do you think on his death bed when he looked back at his relatively short life he took solace in the fact that years in the future some random people admired his “greatness” even though his personal life was a mess?


I don't pretend to have any idea of his interior life but I do think that if he invested his time in being great at his job rather than a passion project with no real practical purpose he would be forgotten. I like being a dad but I don't think everyone has to do that or aspire to it.




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