Skip to content

The Myth of Greatness

2014-05-16 · letter vlog · Hank · 3:56 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Philosophy & meaning (also: History & curiosities, Nerdfighteria) · mode: Personal essay · tags: self promotion

Comparing Missoula (70,000 people) with Renaissance Florence (also 70,000), Hank argues great people are everywhere and that being remembered as great is circumstance; interesting things happen wherever people find what they are passionate about, as Nerdfighteria did for him.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Missoula, a 70,000-person "small town", compared with stadiums and with Manhattan

  • ★★ Hank says Missoula, Montana, often called a small town, has 70,000 people when the students are there, and the population drops significantly when they leave for the summer. — 00:00:01 · Missoula, Montana
  • ★ Hank says 70,000 is oddly considered a small number of people; it is actually a lot, though some stadiums hold more. (playful) — 00:00:10 · Missoula, Montana
  • ★★ For perspective, Hank says Missoula packs its 70,000 people into 2,600 square miles, while Manhattan has 22 times more people in 78 times less area. — 00:00:19 · Missoula, Montana
    • a number in question (doubtful): "2600" — check against the recording

00:00:29 — Manhattan's 1.3 million and Renaissance Florence's 70,000; forces, not a random collection of great people; great people are everywhere

  • ★★ Hank says Manhattan's 1.3 million people are among the richest, most powerful and most influential on the planet, with economic and cultural creation on the scale of Renaissance Italy. — 00:00:32
    • a number in question (doubtful): "1.3 million" — check against the recording
  • ★★ Hank says Renaissance Florence held some of the most powerful economic and cultural forces the world has known: the Medici bankers, Botticelli, Machiavelli, Michelangelo, da Vinci and Brunelleschi. — 00:00:44
  • ★★★ Florence's population then, Hank stresses, was not millions or hundreds of thousands but 70,000, the same as Missoula. — 00:01:03 · Missoula, Montana
  • ★★★ Hank grants that political, economic, cultural and historic forces made Florence the Renaissance's seat, but believes, as he thinks most historians would agree, it was not because of a random collection of really great people. (hedged) — 00:01:13
  • ★★★ Great people are everywhere all the time, Hank says; only occasionally do cultural, historical and economic forces make them remembered for hundreds or thousands of years. — 00:01:30

00:01:42 — Missoula as a little Florence; being remembered is 100% circumstance

  • ★★★ Hank thinks of Missoula as a little Florence full of unnoticed da Vincis; what separates the great people he remembers from those everyone remembers is, he thinks, 100% circumstance. (hedged) — 00:01:42 · Missoula, Montana

    “everyone walking around is an unnoticed da Vinci and an unmade Machiavelli.”

00:01:59 — New channel with Jessi Knudsen Castañeda and Augusto (rescued animals), documented by Caitlin Hofmeister

  • ★★★ Hank announces a new channel launching this week (week of 12 May 2014) with Jessi Knudsen Castañeda and her husband Augusto, SciShow regulars who bring rescued animals to educate the world; it is Jessi's passion. — 00:01:59 · Animal Wonders, SciShow
  • ★★ SciShow producer Caitlin Hofmeister will document the passion and toil of running a small business that feeds hundreds of mouths, two of them twin infant children. — 00:02:14 · SciShow, Animal Wonders

00:02:27 — Why so much happens in Missoula: interesting things are everywhere; people who found their passion

  • ★★★ Asked why so much interesting happens in small Missoula (shows with Emily Graslie, Lindsey Doe, now Jessi), Hank says interesting things happen everywhere: not magical places or people, just people who found their passion. — 00:02:27 · Missoula, Montana
  • ★★ Finding something you believe is important is hard, Hank says; he has watched everyone he has ever known struggle with it. — 00:02:50

00:02:59 — Nerdfighteria gave Hank something to believe in; first allegiance; importance is belief; thanks

  • ★★★ Hank is grateful Nerdfighteria gave him that: all he has done is because he found something to believe in; though he lives in Missoula, his first allegiance is to this community. — 00:02:59 · Nerdfighteria, Missoula, Montana

  • ★★★ The only difference between something being vitally important and not important at all, Hank says, is whether you believe it is; he believes this is important, a gift Nerdfighters gave him. — 00:03:28 · Nerdfighteria

    “…between something being vitally important, and not important at all, is whether or not you believe it is.”

00:03:40 — John's life is 'a bit of a grapefruit'; sign-off; link to Jessi's channel

  • ★ Hank tells John his life seems like a bit of a grapefruit right now: don't freak out, stay sane. (playful) — 00:03:40
  • ★★ Hank points viewers to Jessi's new channel via the description link or an on-screen annotation that doesn't work on phones. — 00:03:48 · Animal Wonders

In the description and comments

  • ★★★ Hank writes that one of the most important parts of circumstance, which he admires in people and is lucky to have found some of himself, is the deep belief that your goals are important enough to get out of bed, overcome apathy and work hard and sacrifice for. — video description
  • ★★★ Many things people believe in most deeply are arbitrary, Hank writes: footballers wreck their bodies to put a ball over a line because it is important because it is important; we are the deciders, and the great trick of great people is convincing themselves their work is worth sacrifice. — video description
  • ★★ Hank thanks Nerdfighteria for inspiring that belief in him for the last seven years; because of this community he has never questioned how important and wonderful it is. — video description · Nerdfighteria

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Animal Wonders · Florence · great man theory · Jessi Knudsen Castañeda · Missoula, Montana

Also: People: Augusto · Emily Graslie · Filippo Brunelleschi · Leonardo da Vinci · Lindsey Doe · Michelangelo · Niccolò Machiavelli · Sandro Botticelli

Projects: SciShow

Groups: House of Medici

Places: Manhattan

Events: Renaissance

Only in the description or credits: American football · Caitlin Hofmeister

Also centred on great man theory: I Gotta Go: Signing Off and Thinking about Inspiration · Redefining What it Means to Matter · Making the World's Largest Ball of Paint · On Immunity, Inoculation, and Individuals

Later videos replying to this one

  • 2014-05-20 · Deserving (John) — continues — “I really liked your video about the Renaissance and circumstance” (00:00:09)