Question

" nothing beside remains " Explain.

Answer 1

LIFE

NOTHING BESIDE REMAINS…

One of my favorite poems deals with the subject of accomplishing much in life and then not having anything to show for it afterwards. It’s called Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley, and the text is below:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shatter’d visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamp’d on these lifeless things,
The hand that mock’d them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains: round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

The skillful use of rhyme and meter is better explained here (and it is truly impressive). I’m more concerned with the message that Ozymandias, through Percy Shelley, leaves us with.

Is it possible to gain so much and have so little to show for it?

Shelley’s poem illustrates a scenario even worse than the old “gain the world but lose your soul” proverb, because regardless of what came of Ozymandias’ soul, he wasn’t even able to hold onto the world. Instead, he was left with nothing at all.

Many of us are busy building monuments just like Ozymandias. Our monuments are often made of material things—cars, houses, bank account balances. While we probably do need some money to do many of the things we like to do, it’s easy to see how a monument to money will be ultimately unfulfilling.

If not money, many of us are building monuments of power. The perfect career will bring us access to more perceived power, so we spend years training in a modern-day apprenticeship program (college) to become accredited to an exclusive guild. For example, several of my law school friends are graduating this year. One of them told me recently, “I’m more scared than ever that I’m going to join the kind of practice that I said I never would. That I’ll just to be a normal lawyer slave like everyone else in our class.”

I told her it was good she was scared. Once you stop being afraid, I said, that’s when you know you’ll end up doing exactly what you were worried about.

There are other monuments you can build–my friend Gretchen Rubin has written a user’s guide to the four most common monuments—or you may have even crafted your own. They work just fine as long as you don’t think about them too carefully, but when you do, you may feel a little flat.

How To Fight Against the Ozymandias Mentality

If you look for a way out of the trap, you’ll find it in making your life count for something greater than yourself. A few suggestions are listed below. Feel free to take them or leave them as you see fit.

Volunteer somewhere. The location isn’t that important. If you have no idea where to get started, look here.Serve on the board of a local non-profit.This is also an exercise in volunteerism, but requires more responsibility. Non-profits need money and wise stewards with some basic business experience. If you can help with both of those areas, you may be a good fit for a local board.Set up a charitable giving trust, and make a will to ensure that your physical assets end up where you want them. That way they won’t be stuck out in the desert, waiting for a poet to come by and make fun after you’re dead.

Answer 2

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