Ruit Hora

The world of historical characters has its distinct tiers – in the A-tier, you’ve got the people whom everyone knows, and knows something about – Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Genghis Khan, and George Washington for example. Then you’ve got your B-tier characters, the people who most people probably have heard of, but only really history enthusiasts will know something about – say Peter the Great, Louis XIV, George III. Then there’s the C-tier, those characters who the average person probably hasn’t heard of, and even the average history buff might only be able to put out a sentence or two on their role in history – such as Talleyrand, Ibn Battuta, and Hugo Grotius.

Grotius is our designated C-lister of the day – and after hearing his name dropped for the I know not how many-th time (though sadly I cannot remember where), I finally decided to go and read his Wikipedia page – a task I shall leave to the reader of this blog. I shall not bore you to recite the contents of that page, save to highlight one point that stuck out to me as being particularly poignant – Grotius’ final words, “By understanding many things, I have accomplished nothing”. As someone who is a bit of a collector of information and random historical facts, this statement, from someone who was actually exceptionally well accomplished and an admirable polymath, felt personally directed and relatable. I know that I find comfort and amusement in the tidbits I collect, but ultimately my life and really my studies have heretofore not been aimed anywhere, at accomplishing anything of any use for anyone but myself.

This reading has spurred me on to try and focus my time into something that might be of some use to someone, after all, as Grotius’ motto says – Ruit hora, time is running away. Now the only question is on what to focus? Running in a straight line is not so hard once you’re moving, but there are an infinite number of angles to choose, how to choose a direction worth pursuing within an infinite space of possibility? Undoubtedly further deep reflection is required.