Defining Greatness: Different Concepts of What Great Truly Means

When I was a child, I loved to play "hide-and-seek." I loved hiding from my friends and the thrill of being almost found, but not. I loved the thrill of waiting for them to find me in my secret hiding place. And then the sheer joy of outwitting, outrunning or outlasting them. The best part is when they would start shouting for me to go out of my hiding place because they couldn't find me at all and they're just about ready to give up totally.

I realize that now, as an adult, I still love to play hide-and-seek; but it is a hide-and-seek of a different kind. It is the hide-and-seek of values and idealism.

It is fairly easy to lose what we value and what we believe in. You just hide it from people; then gradually you forget about it because there are seemingly more important things to do, and the system or society itself does not encourage the living out of what we believe in. After a while, you're just about ready to give up totally, because then you realize that you have changed and you couldn't go back to who you were.

I know of someone for example, who really valued solitude and reflection before, but has now lost it in the hustle and bustle of his job. When I asked him about it, he said that he started becoming so used to not having space for himself in Law School because of the study schedules; and finally he no longer noticed that he had no more time for solitude and reflection at all. He came to me one day, feeling dejected, confused, discouraged and wishing for the time when he had more time for himself. It is a pity because I used to envy him secretly about his insistence on solitude and reflection.

When I was younger, I placed a lot of importance on generosity and giving to those in need. I remember that I would save part of my allowance to buy gifts for my kababata, Cocoy. Cocoy lived in the squatters area near my home and I would always share what I have with him. When my dad bought me a brand new Nintendo Family Computer for example, Cocoy was one of the first ones to use it. Looking back, I realize it came from a very basic (even childish) realization that I have been given more and this friend of mine had less. So I share. Because I want things to be equal between the two of us. It was easier to share because I have been given more. Notice the word given. The things I shared to Cocoy weren't mine per se. They were given to me. It was a generosity that came from thanksgiving. I was thankful, so I was able to share. Generosity came from a grateful heart.

I have lost some of that generosity now. It is no longer easy to give. I have become hardened.

This being hardened did not happen overnight but was a gradual process. I now realize that it started with the gradual loss of this sense of thanksgiving. I sometimes forget that things were given to me. I sometimes think and act as if what I received, I received by right and personal merit, as if I did not learn the things I learned from other people. As if I deserved it. I woke up one day, realizing I am no longer as generous as when I was a child.

"The great man is one who does not lose his (originally good) child's heart." [Book of Mencius, 4B:12]

A parallel passage is found in the Christian Gospels: "Unless you become like little children, you can not enter the Kingdom of Heaven."

So why this fuss about being like children and not losing the child's heart?

We can say many things but I think it has to do with two basic things.

First, it is the child's purity of heart. A child has a basic goodness that comes out naturally without him/her really trying. A child acts without any guile-what you see is what you get. A child is not mean; he can be naughty, but even in his naughtiness, he's not out to defraud, or be mean.

Great men are made of such as this. Mahatma Gandhi was a man with a basic goodness-nay, with a holiness that comes out without his really trying. It is said that Fr. Pedro Arrupe, former General Superior of the Society of Jesus, was quite a naughty person-he would joke around, keep people on edge, make sweeping statements for shock value-but he was never mean. A Jesuit friend of mine used to say about him: "He was a happy holy man."

Second, is the child's ability to dream. For a child, possibilities are endless. For a child, everything is new and so everything is waiting to be known. A child is idealistic. And his idealism is simple: justice ought to be upheld; you ought to give every man what is due him; you can find hope in seemingly hopeless situations; love is the answer. We could say naivety because we know it is a lot more complicated and complex than that.

But if we really think about it, ultimately, when all is said and done: justice ought to be upheld; you ought to give every man what is due him; you can find hope in seemingly hopeless situations; love is really the answer!

Yes, we know that the real world is unfair, On the other hand, this penchant and desire for basic fairness and justice--and the feeling of distaste and anger for injustice-is something we have to learn again. We can get so desensitized by what is happening around us and accept everything-injustice, graft, corruption-as normal and no longer fight it.

Change happens precisely when you feel that there's something wrong and you do something about it. Change happens when a good person sees something wrong with the things happening around him. Change happens when a good person dreams.

Notice here that a person with a good heart has to be the one doing the dreaming. History has been replete with perverted men and their dreams: Hitler and his Thousand Year Reich, Stalin and his USSR, Osama bin Laden and his Terrorism of First World Countries. Perverted men come up with perverted dreams. Notice also that a person with a good heart has to dream. Nothing will happen if the good man will just stay in his cubbyhole and do nothing. There is so much to do in this country, and so few good men, that it is almost a moral obligation to do something good for nation-building.

Greatness is a good man who dreams.

The dream is driven by a sense of justice. It is driven by the sense that there's something wrong and we want to do something about it. Be it in our family, our community, our country or the world. Greatness is faithfulness to justice wherever you find yourself. Some presuppositions are taken here-that you're able to discern the situation and discern the appropriate response, which also presupposes a certain ability for silence and reflection, and a good sense of fairness and probity. It is what drove Mahatma Gandhi to formulate and live active non-violence in an India beset by moral and social crisis.

The dream is also driven by a sense of generosity. A generosity that does not come from abundance, but from gratitude. A generosity that isn't given out of excess, but out of thanksgiving. It is what drove the people who founded this group in the Ateneo de Manila called ANI (Alay ni Ignacio) to create a program for preparing highschool students for college. I had the privilege to talk to some of them, and I saw how indeed, gratitude spurs people to generosity and service.

Lastly, the dream is driven by a sense of love. And not just plain love but mad, passionate, love. I once saw this movie with a line that really struck me, "Anything less than mad love is a waste of our time."

It is a waste of our time, because love that is not mad, may not be love at all. Great men have a very clear sense of this mad, passionate love. Ask the heroes of this world--the Ninoy Aquinos, and Jose Rizals, and martyrs for the faith, and mothers who sacrifice to make ends meet for their children, and UN volunteers. And the answer is: mad love. Mad love, which has a logic all its own.

Anything less than mad love is a waste of our time.