— Anonymous
Ultimately, what makes something great, in my opinion, is its ability to help or give something to others. It’s the reason that, for decades, great leaders have always been the ones who don’t necessarily make the biggest or most notable decisions, or why the greatest inventions aren’t necessarily the iPhone or anything else you would name. It’s why from the start, authors, poets, and politicians have always known that a truly great person is one who makes the people around them great.
If, really, what makes something great is its ability to make others great, the myth of Echo and Narcissus is definitely a great work. In seeing the greatness and the downfall of Narcissus, we, as readers, can learn multiple lessons and takeaways for our own lives. For one, we can easily learn about the risks and dangers of vanity and self-adoration. We can learn about the value of seeing others, rather than only ourselves; we can learn of the importance of relationships above our value of ourselves. What genuinely makes this myth great is the fact that these lessons are ones that we’ll always need to learn; these are things we need to accomplish to really live great lives and be great people. In the age of selfies, of technology and disconnection, and — to some degree — of narcissism, we can continuously learn from this myth and from the actions and failures of Narcissus.
