Most of us pass through our lives having made some small impact. We form and shape our world, engaging in some molding of reality – making the world our own, being influenced by others, and changing them in return. For most of us, our reach is limited. Once we are gone, we may live on through our work and our loved ones’ private memories, but rarely does our impact on the world transcend more than a few degrees of separation. Few ever enter this world and create such a commotion, disrupting everything and everyone we encounter in such profound and staggering ways that the impact we leave on the world does not diminish when we are gone, with an impact that grows outward long past one’s time, touching the lives of individuals never met and never known. Fewer still shape the fate of ideologies and movements.
Andrew Breitbart was one of these few.
The story of Andrew Breitbart isn’t only about him: It’s also a story of every single life he’s touched. It’s about all those he found, and those who sought him out. It’s a story of the people he saw – really saw – and whom he taught to fully see themselves, their own capabilities, their real gifts and potential. To a handful of those who knew and understood him, he taught how to truly see others. He encouraged them to see their abilities and potential the way he saw it in them and to see how they can in turn pass on the gift of fostering new talent, new movements, new ideas. And for many, that has made all the difference, completely changing their lives and the lives around them.
I, personally, never got to meet Andrew Breitbart. My first CPAC was in 2012 and I passed him by many times, always encircled by the press, his entourage, or the many people clamoring for a minute of his attention. Every moment I saw him, he obliged everyone. Being an introvert, and not having anything important to say, I never approached him myself, though I wanted to. I always assumed there would be another time, a time with less chaos where I might have something to say.
But, well, life is funny that way. Nothing is guaranteed, is it?
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And yet, I can still feel his impact on me. Not from a man I never met, but from someone who I merely saw, and who was incredibly enigmatic. It’s not incorrect to say the world felt a little bit more real around him, and everyone – recognizing that in some way – wanted to be part of that experience. Here was a man fully embracing life, not wasting even one second, ever. That kind of energy, of absolute chaos and joyful exuberance, was appealing to everyone – even if they disagreed or even hated the man.
Ten years later, I find myself attending another CPAC, this time as a contributor at RedState. Andrew Breitbart, a man I never met, fundamentally changed my life the moment I attended my first CPAC – not because I met him, but because I met so many people who knew him, who were changed by him, who were and remain driven because of the connections they made with him.
Andrew Breitbart was a ripple effect made manifest. Every single thing he did had not one, but hundreds, if not thousands of consequences. This is not truer, nor more visibly evident than in those who he called friends and colleagues – each of whom has gone on to shape, in some way of their own, nearly every part of the current conservative movement in the United States – and for some, even abroad. Many of them have gone on to influence others, motivating them towards activism, writing, political work, creative media, and so many other projects by carrying a spark of what Andrew passed on to them, and in turn, passing it on to others.
The impact, the influence of Andrew Breitbart never stopped, and from the moment he left, it has grown into an existence with a life of its own. Through his friends, colleagues, and every single person he gave time to, he set off something – an effect so tangible and real that even today it continues to shape the lives of his friends as well as strangers. So many of us never knew Andrew Breitbart, but we know him through those who did, and we can only hope that we will, in our own way, continue this never-ceasing, never-diminishing chain reaction of hope, passion, and creativity. But most importantly, may we be like Andrew in being able to truly see other people, and engage them, the fullness of them, so that they too can know how much potential they hold.
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