The Purple Thread

This is a rather quaint musing .
Epictetus, the slave philosopher of ancient Greece, once ruminated on great people. He once commented on the people who wanted to be normal.
He could never imagine a person wanting to be normal . Everyone should have greater aims, aim to be a god in fact, he said.
He gave an analogy to a toga. He wondered why anyone would want to fit in society- to become like a white thread in the toga. Greatness always lay in the Purple thread. That thread defined the entire toga, made it the cynosure.  The Avant-gardes were the ones who would be known as the purple thread that made the entire toga beautiful. They were the causes for the toga to stand out. The rest were just parts of the toga to serve the purpose while the purple was for the beauty.


here is an excerpt from his book :

"For this reason, when Florus was deliberating whether he should go down to Nero's spectacles and also perform in them himself, Agrippinus said to him, "Go down": and when Florus asked Agrippinus, "Why do not you go down?" Agrippinus replied, "Because I do not even deliberate about the matter." For he who has once brought himself to deliberate about such matters, and to calculate the value of external things, comes very near to those who have forgotten their own character. For why do you ask me the question, whether death is preferable or life? I say "life." "Pain or pleasure?" I say "pleasure." But if I do not take a part in the tragic acting, I shall have my head struck off. Go then and take a part, but I will not. "Why?" Because you consider yourself to be only one thread of those which are in the tunic. Well then it was fitting for you to take care how you should be like the rest of men, just as the thread has no design to be anything superior to the other threads. But I wish to be purple, that small part which is bright, and makes all the rest appear graceful and beautiful. "
So it is just not enough to be great, it is just as important to be different.

This is for a certain friend of mine too, and I would much rather prefer that person to be anonymous.
Cheers