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.
One pretends to do something, or copy someone or some teacher, until it can be done confidently and easily in what becomes one's own style
Yet it is the narrative that is the life of the dream while the events themselves are often interchangeable. The events of the waking world on the other hand are forced upon us and the narrative is the unguessed axis along which they must be strung.
It never really occurred to me to believe in God.
In all things there is a law of cycles.
Property is surely a right of mankind as real as liberty.
To become the enemy, see yourself as the enemy of the enemy
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