No matter how much fame you have, it's not something that belongs to you. If I'm famous, that doesn't belong to me-that belongs to you. If you can't remember who I am, I'm no longer famous.
Interpretation
Fame is transient and dependent on others' recognition; it doesn't truly belong to the individual who is recognized.
Michael J. Fox's quote emphasizes the idea that fame is not an inherent possession but rather a social construct that relies on the acknowledgment of others. Our recognition of fame is fleeting; it is maintained by collective memory and societal engagement. If people forget the individual behind the fame, that person loses their significance and the fame itself becomes meaningless.
In practice
A speaker reflecting on the ephemeral nature of celebrity at a conference.
I find as long as I acknowledge the truth of something, then that's it. I know what it is and then I can operate. But if I overestimate the downside of something or the challenge of something and I get too obsessed about the difficulty of it, then I don't leave enough room to be open to the upside, the possibility.
My whole life, meeting people is like a blind date, because I feel like they've already seen the video on me.
There are no moments you have frozen in amber. It's moving, it's changing, so appreciate what's good about right now and be ready for what's next.
There's always failure. And there's always disappointment. And there's always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums.
Certainly people have a lot tougher situations than I've had to deal with. But I will say we are all dying from the moment we are born. This is not just rehearsal.
I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm an activist, I'm a writer and I'm just a student of the world.
Buddhism is a path of supreme optimism, for one of its basic tenets is that no human life or experience is to be wasted or forgotten, but all should be transformed into a source of wisdom and compassionate living.
Yet the ivory gods, And the ebony gods, And the gods of diamond-jade, Are only silly puppet gods That people themselves Have made.-
Give us, O God, the vision which can see Your love in the world in spite of human failure. Give us the faith to trust Your goodness in spite of our ignorance and weakness. Give us the knowledge that we may continue to pray with understanding hearts. And show us what each one of us can do to set forward the coming of the day of universal peace.
When your inner mantra becomes 'How may I serve?' rather than 'What am I going to get?' and 'Who do I need to defeat?,' you start to see the unfolding of God in everything and everyone around you and you shift into higher consciousness.
The idea that putting Americans 'first' requires a withdrawal from the world is simply wrongheaded because a retreat would achieve exactly the opposite for our citizens.
You're in a bad way! Apparently, you have developed a soul.
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