"Less obviously, though, it is also **the implicit outlook of those who glumly conclude that their life is ultimately meaningless, and that they’d better stop expecting it to feel otherwise**. What they really mean is that they’ve adopted a standard of meaningfulness to which virtually nobody could ever measure up. “**We do not disapprove of a chair because it cannot be used to boil water for a nice cup of tea**,” [[Iddo Landau|Landau]] points out: a chair just isn’t the kind of thing that ought to have the capacity to boil water, so it isn’t a problem that it doesn’t. And it is likewise “**implausible, for almost all people, to demand of themselves that they be a Michelangelo, a Mozart, or an Einstein … There have only been a few dozen such people in the entire history of humanity**.” "In other words, **you almost certainly won’t put a dent in the universe**. Indeed, depending on the stringency of your criteria, even [[Steve Jobs]], who coined that phrase, failed to leave such a dent. **Perhaps the iPhone will be remembered for more generations than anything you or I will ever accomplish; but from a truly cosmic view, it will soon be forgotten, like everything else**." --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[acceptance]], [[character]], [[momento-mori]], [[expectations]] **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]]