Thursday 25 October 2007

High ambitions and realism

Not every kid can grow up to be Prime Minister (or President, or Benevolent Dictator For Life) primarily because there are too many people. If every Australian had to take a turn being Prime Minister of Australia some time after their 18th birthday, terms would be very short indeed (currently just over 2 minutes per person, by my calculations) and getting shorter all the time. It would eventually reach a point where terms would be shorter than the time it takes to say the next Prime Minister's name, even if it's two syllables like "John Smith".

The point is that it might be nice to have ambitions like that, but the world cannot accommodate all of us at the top. Some of us have to be the little people holding the others up.

Mokalus of Borg

PS - Most people do not choose that position willingly.
PPS - We don't have a concept of ambitious servanthood.

2 comments:

Erin Marie said...

You know, I'm sure the rest of that post has a lot of merit ... but all I can see is the 'Benevolent Dictator' part and my eyes start to glaze over at the kind of world I would run with a title like that.

John said...

Well, one way or another, I'm glad my writing has had some effect.

The phrase "Benevolent Dictator For Life", of course, is borrowed from Calvin and Hobbes.