One of my wife and my favorite shows to watch together is The Crown. She is a bit of an anglophile and I am a sucker for tense political drama so it ticks all the right boxes.
We have recently been watching season 3 which I have been absolutely loving. It was always going to be an interesting season with the show jumping forward ~20 years and swapping actors for all of the characters. The season started out a bit slow but boy did it hit its stride a few episodes in. Some of the episodes have been all-time greats not only for the show but for television in general. One, in particular, stood out to me and it has been something I haven’t really been able to get out of my head since.
Episode 7, Moondust, is centered around the moon landing and its impact on the Royal Family. In particular, the episode centers around Prince Philip and his reaction to that one giant leap for mankind. Prince Philip’s storyline throughout the entire show has been particularly fascinating to me and it comes to a head in this episode. Philip is a strong, ambitious, and adventurous alpha male in every sense of the word and his struggle to come to terms with life married to the world’s most famous monarch is an especially key plotline in the first two seasons. By Season 3, he is older and more settled into his role as a member of the royal family, even if he isn’t the one in the main spotlight. Anyways, back to the episode.
The whole world is drawn to the drama of the moon landings, but Philip finds himself especially obsessed. He is a former pilot and feels a certain kinship with the team of American astronauts sent to the moon. He also is going through something of a midlife crisis. For all his ambitions and verve in his younger years, he doesn’t feel as if he has accomplished much so far in his life. He longingly looks to the stars and the astronauts risking their lives among them as examples of “true men”. Men who are accomplishing great things through action.
In stark contrast, his own life finds him grudgingly getting to know the royal family’s new priest, Dean Woods. Woods is a young priest who is interested in using an abandoned building on the Windsor estate as a rehabilitation center for priests who have lost their confidence. Philip has a run-in with the priests who he views as weak men of inaction especially when compared to the Apollo astronauts who he expects to have reached some heightened level of wisdom through the greatness and heroism of their acts.
Once the American astronauts return to earth they go on a victory tour which takes them to Buckingham Palace to meet the royal family. Philip is so excited by the prospects of meeting his heroes that he requests 15 minutes alone with them to talk “airman to airman.” Philip finally gets the chance to meet his heroes. These titans of men who have achieved the impossible and escaped the confines of our planet, and even more miraculously, returned in one shape. Philip exchanges awkward small talk with these heroes and comes away, rather underwhelmed.
They were awkward, immature, and, in Philip’s estimation, “rather dull.” They did not gain some sort of higher plane of wisdom among the stars. They were normal men. In fact, their lack of dynamism was exactly what made them perfect for one of the riskiest missions ever.
Philip’s entire worldview was turned sideways. He had always viewed action to be the path to nobility. Here were men whose actions had been some of the greatest the world had ever known and there was nothing special about them. This shook Philip to his core and leads him back to Dean Woods and his wayward priests.
Philip suddenly saw them in a new light. These men weren’t champions of action, but they were striving in a great pursuit. Unlike the Apollo astronauts, their endeavor was purely internal in nature. These priests were working towards their own self-improvement. They were asking difficult questions of themselves and their faith and were opening themselves to the growth that only community and vulnerability can bring. Like Sisyphus, they were setting themselves against a goal that was at once unattainable and supremely noble. Whereas before Philip saw the priests as weak and ineffectual, he now saw them as courageous. He envied their ability to be honest with themselves and each other about their faults and struggles. The episode ended with Philip joining their ranks and with a statement that Philip’s support of Dean Woods and his rehabilitation center was one of the Prince’s proudest accomplishments.
Ok, now this was an excellent episode of an excellent show and I highly recommend that everyone give it a watch, but why do I feel the need to write about it at such length?
Because at times, I find myself feeling like Philip. I am highly ambitious and sometimes I feel discouraged looking at the accomplishments of others. I know that comparison is the death of joy, but it is still difficult to resist the temptation to measure yourself against others. I often find myself putting heroes on pedestals for their actions. Philip looked up to the Apollo astronauts. I look up to tech CEOs and master venture capitalists. My guess is that I would find meeting many of these heroes similarly underwhelming.
I think Philip’s growth during this episode has a lot of lessons that we can all learn from, especially in the world of tech and entrepreneurship. Almost by definition, the fact that we work in the tech world means that we want to change the world around us in some way shape or form.
While there is definitely nothing wrong with this, it is important to remember, that the greatest achievements are the internal successes, not the external ones.
Compare yourself to who you were three years ago, not to others.
Believe in something. Have faith in things that you can’t see or prove.
Focus on internal growth just as much as external growth.
It’s easy to ascribe magnificence and greatness to human achievements, but remember that for all the heroism of their pursuit, at the end of the day, all the Apollo astronauts found on that face of our most familiar celestial body was moondust.