What is greatness?

A great person has within him the experiences of the entire history of humanity. And something more. His 'growth' into an adult symbolizes the assimilation of these experiences, most unconsciously, into his being. The curious on-looker only has to study his various gestures - his thoughts, his body language, his anxiety, his pain, his hand-movements and his joy, since these different things interpret and display this history in a new light - the light through which his particular genius shines through. This rare particularity and specificity is nothing but what one thoughtlessly calls 'individuality'.
Achieving individuality is a rare thing, and is certainly not an easy task. It is not all pleasure and happiness. The great individual has to live and die many times, since only in doing so can he rehearse the history of humanity inside and outside of him. He has to survive multiple bruises, go on lonely cruises, and learn not to expect other people to comprehend him. He has to accept disappointment as a part of greatness. This is tough to do, since being human (read 'naive') he instinctively expects more than 100% from others all the time, since this is what he gives to them in all his engagements. But he has to see that human beings are not created equal, and the creator-god has squinted eyes. He has to learn to see that his contemporaries do not understand him since they are dependent on him to show them the way. (Achtung: "The tendency to let oneself be debased, robbed, lied to, and exploited could be the shame of a god among men"). It is as if even his common contemporaries 'recognize' who he is and what his destiny is! The present gets its meaning only through a creative reinterpretation of the past - this is the greatest lesson he learns from his friends, family and other strangers.
Individuality and greatness is achieved only when the person not only learns life's tragic lessons, but has that extra energy in him to appear at the other end of the tunnel with an unbruised limb and multiple wings. Even though a part of his being is as old as the mountains, there is another part of his being that is beautifully preserved and fresh, breathing the life of the present and the future. Like the meeting point of autumn and spring he comes to the scene to create his art, and also the appreciators of his art!
But this is not easy. The world, his contemporaries, will resist him as they come to disbelieve their own instincts about life. And this is the greatest challenge for greatness. For now, it has to learn not only how to create, but also to preserve itself in the face of the toughest resistance. This is when greatness stares at abysmal madness, and it needs this madness to do this double job of creating and preserving. Few survive this test for a long time, and in failing this test they become part of history, however only to point themselves towards a future greatness, towards the individuals to come...

Great passage

"Independence is an issue that concerns very few people:- it is a prerogative of the strong. And even when somebody has every right to be independent, if he attempts such a thing without having to do so, he proves that he is probably not only strong, but brave to the point of madness. He enters a labyrinth, he multiplies by a thousand the dangers already inherent in the very act of living, not the least of which is the fact that no one with eyes will see how and where he gets lost and lonely and is torn limb from limb by some cave-Minotaur of conscience. And assuming a man like this is destroyed, it is an event so far from human comprehension that people do not feel it or feel for him:- and he cannot go back again! He cannot go back to their pity again! - -"

- NIETZSCHE