One of the reasons I love studying history and society. There are so many intresting and fun stories hidden away everywhere. It always nakes me think of all the interesting stories not recorded and when I look upon groups of people of traffic I see countless interesting sagas, so many culminative years and actions for them to have just a passing moment here.
IMO having a legacy is overrated. I would settle for just knowing I had a net positive effect on the world, but that’s a pipe dream.
I want my name to be forgotten, but what insights of mine are accurate to become common knowledge.
I want everyone to know that nature is cruel and unjust, a machine that does not care for you and that you cannot control. I want everyone to know that the best gods are the ones we don’t believe to be real. I want everyone to know that humanity doesn’t matter as much as the people themselves. I want everyone to recognize that the tribe is an entity in itself; one that thinks as little about us as we think of our cells. I want everyone to know we will never have certainty about anything; all distinctions, categories, and ways of understanding will always be a shadow of material reality. I want everyone to know that if they love themselves, have faith in themselves, that they will not be reliant on the love of abusive groups or individuals.
No individual, group, or force is in control of all the evil in the world; there are no reigns. Kings are not in control; the kingdom is. Capitalists aren’t in control; capitalism is. All efforts such leaders make to steer are but riding the wave of a system that needs no unique individual; where everyone is replaceable. There is no will to power, only machines doing what works best surviving into the next.
Treating others as more deserving will cause needless suffering and cruelty. If you don’t work to accept when you are wrong, you will hurt others and yourself. What we want is what we deem good, and it’s very possible to find a good we can share.
I just want people in the future to be better than me. I want these ideas to be questioned, built on, and discarded when untrue. I hope people can be good, because the world certainly won’t be.
It’s tough isn’t it? The friction of existing as a moral creature in an imperfect world.
Remember that guilt is more useful as a compass than a whip.
Just something that helps me when I’m struggling.
That reply is pure cope. I mean, sure, eventually everything will “crumble down”, entropy is a thing after all, but that doesn’t mean it’s better to have a sad and lonely life.
At the end of the day life is not about being remembered, but about living a happy life. Living that often comes with being remembered by loved ones, but that’s only a byproduct.
Well said. 🙏
I believe it’s equal.
Are you sure you haven’t just defaulted into this position because you’ve lost hope?
Hope for what?
Unless you are particularly awful. If you are awful enough, you will be remembered. Go figure.
Or if you try to stiff customers on the copper quality
Ok so who is the longest person living in humanity’s memory? Toetanchamon?
Pretty sure Ea-Nasir beats him by a bit.
Do we actuall remember Ea-Nasir, or do we just recall a modern meme about one aspect of his life?
Is that really that different from an ancient king?
Not at all, but I’d say we don’t really remember ancient kings either. We might remember the effect they had on the world, or some particularly unusual characteristic that was recorded for posterity, but I’d say that once the last person who knew them dies, we can no longer remember ‘them’, so much as witness a sort of ‘shell’ of ideas about them.
We don’t remember what they sounded like, or smelt like, how they smiled or what they said to their nearest and dearest. We don’t really know much about them as people compared to the king that became their shell. The things that made them unique people are gone when the last person who experienced them dies, so I’d say we really don’t remember them as people, even if we do remember the ‘king’ or ‘copper merchant’.
We remember that he existed, and some facts about his life.
earliest-living historical person known by name
yup that’s the one
Well he was pretty much forgotten and deemed irrelevant for centuries until we accidentally stumbled over his grave and learned who he was.
Well that just means his memory was revived.
But if we’re counting revived memories, I guess we should mention Ötzi, and better, Lucy. Though one could argue that if their original names are lost it doesn’t count.
Ea-Nasir, maybe?
The was a book about roughly this premise, though more the idea that you’re not truly dead until the last time someone speaks your name. It’s been many years since I read it, but I remember liking it pretty well. It raised several very interesting ideas about that mythology, so I’d recommend giving it a read if the topic interests you!
It’s pretty much the concept of the movie coco
True, but with a very different execution.
I would love to eat out Mona Lisa if you know what I mean
Right? Imagine being unable to make eye contact while eating a woman
Is it sad ? I think it’s comforting. I don’t think the world deserves to remember me.
Let the Mona Lisa burn; it’s just an asset anyways.