The Gem Metaphor
In the grand scheme of mankind’s achievements, there have been many great people to have pushed us. These unique individuals who dedicate their time and efforts for new discovery and for the betterment of all... are those who create great works of art, architecture, writing, technologies and ideas.
They occur sparingly across the history of mankind and are revolutionary. In the sea of millions of individuals, these great minds shine bright across generations to be revered and talked about even to this day. Buried among different cultures and different times, they are like gems discovered deep within the cracks of the earth.
We do not know whether these great people were purely circumstantial or if they have a unique divinity in them that allows greatness. Gems often occur in veins; where you find one you may very well find more and each gem may be unique to their situation and composition. Great people have also been noted to appear in clusters, in the way that Socrates influenced Plato, whom influenced Aristotle. Certain locations in space and time become perfect substrate to produce multiple great people, or in nature form unique gems.
The Snowflake Metaphor
More familiar today and reinforced from a young age, is the idea that each human being is unique. Like a snowflake, we are each different in infinite and very complicated ways. Each of us is different, but immeasurably different from each other; each snowflake, while some many resemble others or share similar characteristics, becomes unique but also the same as others.
You're special, and you are a snowflake. Reinforcing this in a multi-cultured society can be good, and gives each individual the idea that they have the potential to shine. But underlying, is it really only the gems that shine, the ones that can achieve greatness....
and that the rest of us become collective mounds of snow?
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Where is the difference in each of these metaphors? The Gem metaphor feels much like pre-destined circumstances where only the few with the right skills and right mentors can achieve historical greatness. If we see the world as specialized members of society like the Snowflake metaphor where each person is unique and provides in their own special way, then over time that grey unique-ness that is celebrated in everyone feels off-putting, and great people are lost in the crowd.
When I look down onto a mound of snow, I notice individual ice crystals shine, and in a mass the snow appears to glitter with fragments of light. Not all these snow crystals refract the light, only a few shine, and the rest absorb and reflect the light to appear white.
Only a few shine, but we gather that they all have potential to shine.
Gems always have the potential to shine; they just have to be revealed. When shown in the light, it is clearly unique, genuine, and wills desire. Under the layers of earth and minerals, the gem may rest in its sublime and earthly womb for eons, and never be admired. This seems true of other great people who were eaten up by the wormhole of history and lost in time. While they could have shown bright, they were never uncovered and so forgotten.
Some are found lately, like the venerated Vincent or martyred Marx. They both left marks, but the soot of history had to be removed and the stone polished. They were rarities, and hermetic at times. Can a gem seem hermetic if it never leaves the caves?
It saddens me to think of the forgotten gems of the past, with all their earthy answers, the ones who had contributed to mankind but ultimately never shared.
Or is the ultimate mistake in acknowledging them as individuals and not together... surely all of mankind is one great and glittering gem on a rock floating in space. The frozen and fragile bodies of snowflakes are not much unlike the dazzling crystal structures of gems, they shine and reflect light just as brilliantly.