Fall from grace – inevitable?

We create, we destroy.  We build up, we tear town.

People, companies, and relationships amongst them all.

Perhaps on a small and personal scale, it may be possible to maintain strength and joy.  I believe it is.  But can this work on a bigger, louder canvas?  I am not so sure.

How many greats have escaped a fall?  Whose big names or brands have soared to great heights, never to have their wings melted and the fall begin?

If you agree that this trajectory is inevitable, should it be? If you disagree, name names 😀

In the meantime, here are two songs—one more serious, one quite humorous—to set the mood.


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12 responses to “Fall from grace – inevitable?”

  1. simone Avatar

    I’m not a fan of motor sports, but in the Moto GP the world champion of the last years, Valentino Rossi said a thing that is always on my mind when i think to defeats and great mistakes. A journalist once asked Valentino “why you always win the championship? what’s the secret?” to this pretty simple and ingenuous question Valentino answered with mathematics: “when you win, you get 20 points, you can win with 4 minutes from the second, or you can win just for few seconds, you always get 20 points. But when it’s a very bad day, and everything goes wrong it’s impossible to win, you may end out of the race ranking. Those days arriving 8th instead of 9th can give you those little points, that made you win the championship”. (sorry i couldn’t link the whole original interview since i read it on a newspaper and i can’t find it anymore!)

  2. Adam Avatar

    A buddy of mine asked me whether this post—like many of my posts on BLADAM—was directly or indirectly autobiographical.  The answer is nope, not that I know of consciously, at least.  I was actually inspired to write the post after listening to both songs recently, thinking of the common theme, and then pondering the philosophical issue of rise-and-fall-of-grace.

  3. Adam Avatar

    And one of these days, I’ll get around to fixing the broken graphics here ;-).  Darn self-installed software…

  4. Wave Avatar

    I don’t think this building / tearing down cycle is all that bad. It brings change into the world and I wouldn’t want to live in a static world.

    It is true that not all change is for the best, but I am an optimistic person and believe that on the whole we are making progress.

  5. Bonny You Avatar

    The trajectory can form because there is a high point and a low point. These highs and lows of life come from our minds perceiving the world as dualistic. We assign ourselves values when we swing from one end of the spectrum to the other. Dualism, in my opinion, largely exists in our minds.

    From when the earth was first formed until right now, we never say that the earth had some kind of previous success and has fallen into disgrace because it is now covered with critters on its surface. We simply don’t assign these value to the earth, so the earth doesn’t really have a self-esteem problem 🙂

  6. glen brammall Avatar

    I believe that things on a large scale are just a reflection of things on a smaller scale. I need to believe that all things are possible!

  7. Joe Avatar

    High values are always appreciated, throughout time.  If ones rise is due to their true value, they will remain high.  If it is only a momentary rise, due to an unauthentic burst of popularity, the fall will be much quicker than the rise.

  8. Mason Vaughn Avatar

    It’s fine to rise and fall, the key is to rise again after the fall!

  9. Steve Avatar

    I think it is inevitable.  I don’t think that, as a species, we can help it.  Not only do we eventually destroy everything that we create, but we destroy so that we can create.  It’s the old adage, “You can’t make an omelet unless you break a few eggs”.  Unfortunately, I think that often those eggs are more costly than we could have originally foreseen.

  10. carina Avatar

    pity! I want to listen to the two of them songs but the left won’t work. He’s still loading.
    Ah… now i can see it =)
    I like both, but If i must take a decision i prefer the king of spain. =)

  11. Max Avatar
    Max

    While there is accuracy in your statement, because *everything* is geared to balance…systole, diastole, etc.

    However, this is in terms of perceived motion. It is real, but it is manifest reality.

    What this doesn’t accommodate at all is inspiration, vision, spirit, or even life itself. Nobody says – “Wow I’m going to ride this hard and then TANK bigtime!!” It may happen. Yet it may not. Without the infinite aspiration and undying, unchanging passion to create, or achieve, or succeed. Nothing will happen.

    When things do happen, they only appear to fade or die as the energy transforms. Thousands of years from now the thing itself, or the influence of the thing exists. So- that begs the question – is permanence the important thing, or even desirable? I like the laws of nature which provide for the movement and transition of energy from one state to another.

    Tell the Bell family that their light is snuffed out. That’s one of the weakest examples I can come up with, but it is a name.

  12. ThatAdamGuy Avatar

    Wave, good points. Sometimes change is not just inevitable, but good. And I am generally an optimistic person (over the long haul).

    Bonny, a delayed “nice to see you here!” 🙂 re: dualism, sure, it may be a mental construct, but it’s still hard to shake, no? :p But hey, if the earth can avoid having a self-esteem problem, it shouldn’t be that hard for us humans to cope. On a less flippant note, it does seem that certain religions are better at this than others. Hmm.

    Glen, I like believing that all is possible, too, but my faith in that depends on the day, that’s for sure. Much harder on Mondays.

    Joe, what concerns me is that our bar for “high values” for people and organizations may raise to insurmountable heights over time, making the striving seemingly futile.

    Mason, do you have a cousin named sissyphus? 😉 Point taken, though.

    Steve, true re: the costliness of the rebuilding or replacement. Kind of reminds me of forests, clearcutting, and the juxtaposition with the necessity of forest fires for a healthy forest.

    Carina, please try the songs again. Grooveshark is free and fun, but (another f) can be flakey, unfortunately. Oh, looks like they eventually played for you. And yes, I love that King of Spain song (Moxy Fruvous — sadly long-since disbanded — was so much fun! Wish I had caught one of their live concerts).

    Max, we seem to come full circle now with your comment, which mirrors that of Wave… suggesting that change is not only inevitable, but desirable as a constant. Life goes on… change marches on. There are causualities, indeed, but as you highlight, there are winners, too.

What do you think?