Tag Archives: fame

What Is the Purpose of Life? Part 5

Speaking of honor and fame, Jesus warned his followers not to confuse the finger with the moon, so to speak. He said,

Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Mt 6:1-4)

Acts of righteousness beget rewards from the Father in heaven. The honor of men is a poor substitute for that.

Following is an illustration of why honor and fame cannot be what brings ultimate happiness.

Imagine there was a man named Joe. Joe was extremely lazy and always made bad grades in high school, but he was mistakenly accepted into Wake Forest as a freshman undergrad. Joe’s dorm mates and professors quickly found out that Joe really didn’t belong at Wake because he slept all the time and never studied.

However, they got together when Joe wasn’t around and decided to pretend that Joe was really a brilliant pre-law student. In every class, Joe would ask really dumb questions but the professors would say, “What a great question, Joe! I had never thought of that before.” His dorm mates would drop by his room and tell him that he was the most gifted student they had ever seen at Wake. He was given “A’s” in every single class. When he graduated, the school arranged for him to graduate with high honors.

It didn’t stop there, because Joe still wanted to be a lawyer and his professors encouraged him to apply to the most prestigious law schools around the country. The law schools Joe applied to were secretly asked to play along and so Harvard eventually accepted him. Once he was in Harvard, he was given the opportunity to clerk for a supreme court justice, to study under the most brilliant law professors, and he continued to receive nothing but “A’s” on every assignment, even though he never learned anything and continued in his lazy ways. Eventually Joe received his law degree and again graduated with honors.

When he applied to find a job, his professors secretly convinced potential employers to go along with the charade, and he received numerous job offers to law firms around the country. Joe accepted a position at one of the law firms and was quickly promoted to be a senior partner.

What do you think of Joe’s life? Do you want to be like him?

Joe received abundant honor and fame in school and in his profession even though he hadn’t earned any of it. Joe didn’t know the first thing about law. He was completely clueless and deserved to flunk out of Wake Forest his first semester. It was all a sham. Do you think Joe led a meaningful life?

I think the answer is obvious. Joe’s life wasn’t meaningful at all. It was a waste. All of the honor and fame he received didn’t amount to anything because Joe didn’t deserve any of it. Joe’s whole existence consisted of confusing the finger for the moon. Happiness does not consist in honor and fame.

What Is the Purpose of Life? Part 4

The next two things Aquinas considers, after wealth, are similar, so I’ve combined them. They are honor and fame. By honor, I mean high respect or public esteem given to an individual by other people. Some might call it popularity. Fame is merely the multiplication of honor to a large number of people.

A person can receive honor from only one person, but a person can only receive fame from a very large number of people. But in both cases, honor and fame are given to one person by other people. So why would anyone think happiness consists in honor or fame?

The main argument goes like this: Almost everyone desires to be recognized for something good they do, and that is what honor and fame are, positive recognition. If we achieve something extraordinary in our lives, most of us would like to be honored for it, and if we achieve something truly outstanding, we might even receive fame. Whether it means kind words from a co-worker or a gold medal at the Olympics, we all want to be honored. So fame and honor seem to be a reward for great achievement, and so they both make us happy.

Are honor and fame the ultimate purpose of life? No, because the argument misunderstands what they are.

Here is the crucial thing to understand about honor and fame. Honor and fame are given to a person because that person possesses some achievement or trait that is outstanding. This outstanding thing in a person is what causes other people to esteem or respect them.

For example, I may have a generous spirit and give money to the poor, and thus be honored at a philanthropy awards dinner. I may be a gifted quarterback for my high school football team, and my team may honor me by voting me most valuable player for the season. In each case, the honor or fame is a sign pointing to the excellence in the person. It’s only a sign.

A famous Zen Buddhist proverb says, “A finger is useful for pointing to the moon, but woe to him who mistakes the finger for the moon.”

Here are a couple of illustrations of this concept. Receiving a good grade in school is the sign of your accomplishments in class. If you only care about getting the good grade, and not getting the knowledge that should have been gained from the class, you are a fool because you’ve confused the knowledge with the grade. The grade is only the sign pointing to the knowledge. The grade is the finger and the knowledge is the moon.

We don’t go on a vacation in order to just take pictures to return home and show people. The pictures are a sign of your vacation, not the vacation itself, which should be enjoyed whether pictures are taken or not. The wise person focuses on the vacation first, and the pictures second. The pictures are the finger and the vacation the moon.

If you’ve ever been to Disney World, you drive by huge signs indicating that you’ve arrived. Even though I feel a sense of excitement when I see the signs, that feeling pales in comparison to the experience of actually walking into the park itself. I never confuse the signs with the park.

The discussion of honor and fame continues in part 5.

 

The Meaning of Life According to Malcolm Muggeridge

Post Author: Bill Pratt

Below is another great quote from Malcolm Muggeridge, a man who in many ways was extremely successful.  Every day I see people who think that just a little more money, or a little more pleasure, is all they need to be content.  How sad and how foolish.  Money, fame, and pleasure will never fill you up.  Just go ask the rich and famous whether they’re content with their lives.

The philosopher Peter Kreeft once remarked that suicide rates are much higher in wealthy nations than poor nations.  Think about that for a good long minute.  If money and pleasure are truly what life is about, then suicide rates should be lower in wealthy nations, not higher.  Something is askew!

In any case, please enjoy the quote below from Malcolm Muggeridge:

I may, I suppose, regard myself, or pass for being, as a relatively successful man. People occasionally stare at me in the streets–that’s fame. I can fairly easily earn enough to qualify for admission to the higher slopes of the Internal Revenue–that’s success. Furnished with money and a little fame even the elderly, if they care to, may partake of trendy diversions– that’s pleasure. It might happen once in a while that something I said or wrote was sufficiently heeded for me to persuade myself that it represented a serious impact on our time–that’s fulfillment. Yet I say to you — and I beg you to believe me–multiply these tiny triumphs by a million, add them all together, and they are nothing–less than nothing, a positive impediment–measured against one draught of that living water Christ offers to the spiritually thirsty, irrespective of who or what they are.