Pick someone who is now gone, passed away, someone average and nondescript. A peasant, a nobody, a middle-class lifer. Someone whose name will never appear in future historical records. Point to most any gravestone you find. There they are.
Chances are, in the grand scheme, they lived AND died in vain. As will the majority who ever live.
The rare exceptions are those whose existence changed the world in some measure. It is they who deserve recognition.
