The bane of men that would be great is the realization that the reality to be altered, removed or conquered requires more than the will of one to overcome. Given that the man who would be great desires to work his will because he is not satisfied with the current existence, if he is not able to withstand the full realization of the bane and overcome it, he will undoubtedly seek ways to shun his present universe. It would not be uncommon for there to be entire theatres full of men who would be great. Indeed, Nintendo has built quite a substancial fortune by selling to those who need to ignore their reality. The men who would be great are not alone in their evasion of the world. They are merely falling in beside the normal person; the one who ignores, or simply endures without question, that which is painful or distasteful of their situation. The man who would be great cannot even be distinguished from the average person at that point by any scientific method. There are intuitive methods, though. The man who complains incessently or drinks to excess due to constant depression, though no great loss has befallen his life, could be a subdued great man. The one obsessed with role-playing games or computer worlds might just be another. Only intuition could give the clue. It is entirely possible that even the guy who whines about absolutely everything could have one day been the next Napolean or Charlemagne. Every reality has subdued great men. Every present has had subdued great men. In a particular reality, not too much unlike ours, in one specific present, quite similar again, there existed a subdued great man named Jack. His story began in a theatre in City. He was, as indicated before, shunning his reality because he had problems with it. Nothing so grand as social reforms or political causes perturbed Jack. Jack was simply tired of the thoughtless person. The one who walked out the door at the store and let it go the half second before Jack got there. The one who lets his dog crap in his kids playground and didn’t pick it up. The one who cranked the bass all the way up on his radio and hovered through his neighboorhood at two in the morning. None of them went out of their way to do harm. They were all just trying to make things more comfortable on themselves. In a way, they were altering their realities to suit themselves. The problem crept up, though, when their small alterations met in the same place at pretty much the same time and collided with about a dozen other realities. That seemed to happen daily to Jack.