Burden of the past

"Fidel Castro was obsessed with how history would judge him. " This sentence struck a cord in me. Changing, admiting you are wrong is unbelievly hard if your whole life is based on holding on what you claimed was truth. It takes more than courage. It takes true satin's nobility. Not many Christian preachers or believers gave up their faith when they found out that earth is round, they just tried their best to find a work around, like keep fighting longer war with science and progress. As so many other Communists, Castro spent his whole life fighting for creating a new world that is better than the existing one. That is the only and sole purpose and accomplishment of his life. He was a revolutionary. And admitting it's wrong, basically is taking away the whole purpose and value of his life. Fame and record in history is the only things that matter. But if some one gives what all his life about away, what is left in the record? Sounds selfish, but the reason why we intellectuals can easily talk about these, wrong or right, is because we have other purposes. Maybe computer science is our interest. Maybe it is a accomplishment for us to identify a better system, whether its capitalistic or communistic, doesn't matter. So sure we can easily talk about truth and judge. But it is not so easy to talk about what you do right? No one wants to admit their life's work is meaningless, and counter productive. Nobody is gonna talk others their jobs suck even sometimes they are.

I find it so similar to what China is right now. The leaders, the officials, they don't have any zeal or anything. They just kept repeating what was said, and even don't dare to quote Mao for those were way too radical. They are just waiting, that someone will let it go and open up. Because no one with his youth dedicated to the ideal would want to give it up. Betraying one's own youth is hard. They are just waiting, for the younger, for the ones that seek accomplishment not in the past, but in the future.