Travis Neilson: Designer, Thinker, & Photograph-taker

Pro­lo­gue

Two days after we buried my Grand­father my little girl came into the world. As one gene­ra­tion pas­sed on to the next life, so a new gene­ra­tion began in this. Once I had time to pause and reflect upon these recent events I noti­ced an inte­res­ting thing: about the same num­ber of peo­ple came to visit my daugh­ter upon her birth as those who came to pay their last res­pects to my grand­father upon his death.

Were these num­bers a coin­ci­dence? Or, I thought to myself, could it be true that, in gene­ral terms, the num­ber of peo­ple that care about your death is nearly the same as the amount of peo­ple that care about your birth?

This thought intri­gued me greatly. As visi­tors and well-wishers came and went, I tried to dis­cern their moti­va­tions for doing so. What brought them? Why did they care at all about our new baby girl? And why, in com­pa­ri­son, did those mour­ners stand at the gra­ve­site of my grand­father? Is there a supreme com­pe­lling phe­no­me­non that gathers a spe­ci­fic num­ber of sundry peo­ple together at every birth and fune­ral? No, of course not. What then?

Over time I rea­li­zed that the num­ber of peo­ple I noti­ced (the very thing that first spar­ked my inte­rest) was insig­ni­fi­cant — but that there was indeed a gem of dis­co­very in my line of ques­tio­ning. It’s the con­nec­tion that these peo­ple have that is the impor­tant mat­ter. Sundry? Far from it, these peo­ple are con­nec­ted. They are encom­pas­sed about by one sin­gu­lar uni­ting force, they are are wrap­ped in a com­mon sphere of influence.

Defi­ning Sphe­res of Influence

I want to, for the pur­po­ses of this dis­cus­sion, define the group of peo­ple that care about you, and in turn, are influen­ced by your life as those peo­ple inc­lu­ded in your sphere of influence.

Con­si­der, for a moment, the great­ness of a man. Con­si­der his accom­plish­ments, his triumphs and achie­ve­ments. Con­si­der the grea­test men and the songs that carried their legends through the ages. Note that through all the sto­ries, through all the legends and his­to­ries, the pro­ta­go­nist is never the hero. Indeed, the heroes are the bene­fi­cia­ries of the great deeds. They are, in fact, the legends.

Did I men­tion that George Washing­ton was also the only ame­ri­can pre­si­dent to ever have con­gress com­mis­sion a sta­tue of them­sel­ves resem­bling the Gre­cian god Zeus.

Let me give, for an exam­ple, the story of the great Ame­ri­can hero: George Washing­ton. Of course his­tory has pro­du­ced its Gene­rals and war heroes, but few are as impres­sive in my mind as the first Ame­ri­can Pre­si­dent. It’s not just his impres­sive track record of des­tro­ying bri­tish oppo­si­tion all across the colo­nial new world, or the mind-blowing fact that he was asked outright to be the King of Ame­rica. What most impres­ses me about George Washing­ton was his immense sense of inte­grity and humi­lity. When Washing­ton was asked to be King he refu­sed and only reluc­tantly agreed to be the Pre­si­dent. (This being the only occu­rrence in our his­tory when the elec­to­ral collage gave 100% of their votes to a sin­gle can­di­date.) Indeed, he even refu­sed the tit­les “Majesty” and “High­ness” in favor of the more reser­ved and less aggran­di­zed “Mr. Pre­si­dent.” When the 1st Uni­ted Sta­tes con­gress voted to give him a $25,000 salary (which was a healthy sum in those days) he dec­li­ned the salary, since he valued his image as a sel­fless public ser­vant more. After reluc­tantly ser­ving a second term as pre­si­dent, he refu­sed to run for a third, esta­blishing the cus­to­mary policy of a maxi­mum of two terms for a pre­si­dent. After esche­wing the request to con­ti­nue being Pre­si­dent till he died, the man went to Mount Ver­non to become a far­mer. He was a power­ful, com­man­ding man with great vision, who led with honor and con­vic­tion. Washing­ton is the only man in his­tory to have ever reached his sta­tus of power and influence only to willingly give it up the way he did, to teach us a bet­ter way. One hun­dred per­cent awesome.

These are but a few cita­tions that I hope esta­blish the fact that I feel that George Washing­ton is a com­plete legend of a man. But, in all sober­ness, let me ask: why? Why do I, per­so­nally, believe — over 280 years later — that George Washing­ton was a great man? What has con­vin­ced me? Is it because of the tasks and achie­ve­ments them­sel­ves? No, with a bit of thought we can observe that the tasks them­sel­ves have no voice, but it was the peo­ple who were affec­ted by his works that carried his story. The peo­ple who were influen­ced by his poli­cies and deci­sions, by his bra­very and his lea­dership, they are the sin­gers of his songs to the next generation.

By this exam­ple, we can see then, that the mark of a man’s worth is, in many ways, his sphere of influence.

Quan­ti­ta­tive Sector

The sphere of influence that we all have and carry with us from sta­tion to sta­tion in life grows or shrinks, depen­ding on a num­ber of varia­bles. Geo­graphic loca­tion, age, family size, reli­gious affi­lia­tion, com­mu­nity acti­vity and sexual orien­ta­tion can all affect the size of the sphere. Simply put, the more peo­ple you know, who are impac­ted by your life, the big­ger your sphere of influence.

This is why many peo­ple seek cele­brity or public office — or even to have more twit­ter follo­wers. They sense the con­nec­tion that their per­so­nal worth is in rela­tion to the size of their sphere of influence. It follows that if they can inc­rease the num­ber of peo­ple in that sphere, they, them­sel­ves, become of a higher value.

But what of the man who never finds — or looks for — the cele­brity here­to­fore spo­ken of. My Grand­father was just such a man. The high­lights of his life were his ser­vice in the navy, in his pro­vi­dence to his family, and in his repu­ta­tion among his peers in the prin­ting industry.

It could be obser­ved, at this point (con­si­de­ring only this quan­ti­ta­tive view of the sphere of influence) that such a life was worth very little. That, because the sheer num­ber of peo­ple wrap­ped in his sphere of influence was less than the latest pop icon or poli­ti­cal figure, so was his value.

Qua­li­ta­tive Sector

Try to tell that to his Daugh­ters who, through tears and sni­vels, tes­ti­fied of the way he made each of them feel like she was his favo­rite. Tell that same story to the Grand­son who he took under his wing and taught to be a man, the way only one man can teach another.

It may be obvious that there is another varia­ble by which to judge a man’s worth, other than by how far-reaching his sphere may be. There is a Qua­li­ta­tive com­po­nent that balan­ces the Quantitative.

A sim­ple truth: the qua­lity and depth of his rela­tionships, taken on an indi­vi­dual basis, are the most valua­ble things a man can have. Can this be argued?

Quan­ti­ta­tive data is easy to unders­tand and use, qua­li­ta­tive data howe­ver, is not so. How can you mea­sure a rela­tionship? There is no rod against which to mea­sure such a thing, further­more the nature of the thing in ques­tion — a rela­tionship — is cons­tantly in flux. For exam­ple: some­ti­mes I like you, some­ti­mes I don’t.

So how does one mea­sure the strength of his influence? The first step, I sup­pose, is to iden­tify the rela­tionships whe­rein that influence is found. Sim­pli­fied, a visual repre­sen­ta­tion of my own rela­tionships look like this:

I have taken my life and boi­led it down to my core life-roles. It can be seen that I am a Father, Hus­band, Son, Brother, Collea­gue, Friend, and so on. Some of these roles over­lap and some of them are dis­pa­rate. Some of them carry a hea­vier weight, or in other words: a grea­ter value. Over time, the roles I have evolve and change. Father is an enti­rely new role for me. These roles repre­sent sub-sections of my sphere of influence, or even mini-spheres. What kind of influence do you have pro­fes­sio­nally over your collea­gues? What about in your home over your family mem­bers? Does the value you place on the rela­tionships outside of the home take pre­ce­dence over the ones inside of it? If so, what does that say about you? The real ques­tion is this: who are you hoping will sing your songs when you are no more?

After an inven­tory is made of the roles, and value of each role’s rela­tionships asses­sed, a clea­rer pic­ture of your qua­li­ta­tive value emerges.

The value of an extraor­di­nary life

Thin­king back to the sta­te­ment I made ear­lier that “the mark of a man’s worth is, in many ways, his sphere of influence.” I would like to append to that sta­te­ment the idea that the total value of his sphere is the sum of both its breadth and its depth. Mea­ning that to be a valua­ble per­son, to truly live an extraor­di­nary life, you must strive to reach and influence as many peo­ple as deeply and as pro­foundly as you pos­sibly can.

Epi­lo­gue

This article star­ted out being just a “stream of cons­cious” wri­ting exer­cise and ended up being quite an under­ta­king. It’s never taken me this long to write anything and I’ve never had so many revi­sions. I hope that it shows. Thank you to my ins­pi­ra­tions: Grandpa Robert Sch­midt, Par­ker Neil­son, and a ran­dom con­ver­sa­tion I had years ago with a stran­ger in England. Also to the kind peo­ple who proof read this article and cha­llen­ged my theo­ries: Jayna Neil­son, Max Supera, Joy Wil­son and Jim Coo­ney. Without you I am sure it would have been much less than it is now. Thanks to Jake Casto for let­ting me know how awe­some Washing­ton is.

I hope that you, as the rea­der, have taken something from this. I know it can be a bit heavy at times, but I feel ques­tions like this are impor­tant to keep my life on track. Please let me know your thoughts in the com­ment sec­tion below, I’d love to hear other pers­pec­ti­ves. Also, If you were impres­sed by any of these con­cepts, please share them with the peo­ple in your sphere of influence!