“Accomplishment is a little trickier.”

Stealing from another person’s blog today, something that struck me as relevant to Entertaining Welsey Shaw. This is from the website of violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg:

I’ve been thinking lately about these two words…fame and accomplishment. One would think that the two go together naturally, but I think that they hardly ever meet actually.

I guess that it depends a lot on one’s definition of the words. Fame…well fame is being famous. People know who you are, know your name, maybe know your face. Accomplishment is a little trickier in my book anyway. To accomplish something is not merely to get something done…not to me. It is to do something that hasn’t been done before, that influences people, that changes the world in some way. Famous people are usually the likes of actors and athletes and my favorite…the celebrity who rarely does anything at all but is still famous for something…

Accomplished people are more the likes of doctors and scientists and researchers and sometimes even politicians. They are hardly ever famous and are never recognized in airports or get asked to sign an autograph. And yet they actually do change the world… somewhat anyway. I think it’s a shame that fame is the dictating factor of who we know. It is also the dictating factor of salaries. I myself would like to know more researchers and scientists. It would be fascinating to talk with them and learn about things I didn’t even know existed. To learn about the possibilities that can change the world we live in.