A hidden life in the era of social media can still change history, as the story of Jesus shows; The Guardian, December 14, 2025

Justine Toh, The Guardian ; A hidden life in the era of social media can still change history, as the story of Jesus shows

[Kip Currier: Resonant brief piece by Justine Toh, sharing the insights of 19th century Victorian writer George Eliot (nee Mary Ann Evans). As Toh observes:

...the spotlight needn’t be on you for you to live an influential life. A life might be “hidden” – a heresy in the social media era, where everything exists to be shared – yet still well lived. You can shape the course of history, even if you leave little trace on it.

So relevant -- and a welcome antidote -- to this social media era that demands and amplifies "attention", "likes", "notice", and "influence".]

[Excerpt]

"Do you want to be influential?

So do 57% of gen Zs in the US who aspire to be influencers, presumably lured by money and fame. But say you also want to make the world a better place. In that case, maybe the spiritual instruction you need emerges in the famous final lines of George Eliot’s 1871 novel Middlemarch:

“… the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”

Eliot offers a bracing reality check: the spotlight needn’t be on you for you to live an influential life. A life might be “hidden” – a heresy in the social media era, where everything exists to be shared – yet still well lived. You can shape the course of history, even if you leave little trace on it.

This strange idea takes on added significance for me at Christmas. The story of Jesus’s birth is nothing if not “unhistoric” – in the sense of being ignored – even if today we live in the wake of his influence...

Eliot gives us a place to start renewing our attention – by recognising that “the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts”.

If nothing else, the line doubles as a fitting description of Christianity’s lasting effect. That it was penned by a woman who shed her Christian faith, but largely retained its ethics, is even more ironic. Whatever you believe, Eliot’s is excellent advice: keep adding to the world’s growing good by small acts. Unhistoric on their own, perhaps, but that still prove generative, spawning possibilities long after."