A Quote from Jack Kerouac
“Great things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.”
~ Jack Kerouac
To be honest, I’m of two minds regarding this quote.
My first reaction was “Yes, of course!”, because if we’re afraid to step outside the norm and try the new, or give too much weight to the opinions of others over our own, then we’ll probably never achieve anything beyond that norm.
On the other hand, I do find it can help, especially when contemplating Big Life Decisions and Leaps of Faith to seek—and even heed!—the wisdom of others who may have experience of major life changes or taken such leaps themselves.
While this probably doesn’t equate to trends and fads, or even popular opinion, my point is that we should always keep an open mind to experiences and viewpoints beyond our own.
One helpful visitor, leaning on the back of my chair as I typed this post, opined that maybe Kerouac just meant creative accomplishment. We then discussed whether—even if that were so—the same principle wouldn’t also apply to any major life endeavour, and decided that it would.
Yet even when it comes to creative accomplishment alone, I can’t help reflecting on Shakespeare’s plays and how the Elizabethans (allegedly) didn’t value originality in the same way we do now. So at the time Shakespeare was penning his Romeo and Juliet, we’ve reason to believe other playwrights were putting on very similar—if not the same—production. They may even have called their plays “Romeo and Juliet”, too.
Shakespeare, in that case, was very much in tune with the trend and popular opinion—but what he made of it, with his Romeo and Juliet, was unquestionably great and has endured the test of time.
So like Tolkien’s elves, I am saying “both yes and no” to Jack Kerouac’s quote—and having had my buck each way, can now knuckle down to the writing week. 😀