Synopsis:
Does our legacy matter in the bigger scheme of things.
Total Words
Reading Time in Minutes
2
Key Takeaways:
- Digital legacies are fragile
- We can’t control how we are remembered
- Hard for anyone to curate their legacy
- Plant more trees
About Simon Cocking:
Writer, editor, tree planter, music lover, ex-ultimate frisbee player, trying to see the beauty and be pleasant to be people, unless they really, really, need to be told otherwise.
Contacting Simon Cocking:
You can contact Simon by eMail.
By Simon Cocking
No one wants to be forgotten, but as we all know, death and taxes are unavoidable eventually. Some try to fight this, while most of us aim not to be King Cnut-like, shouting at the incoming sea. Therefore does it matter, a hundred years from now we have no control of how we are remembered. As ecologists have found, the shifting baseline misplaced narrative means it is very difficult for people to even consider how things might have been, even before their own childhood, let alone several generations earlier.
Initially we may think we are more fortunate than previous generations due to the digital possibilities for laying down memories and traces. This is superficially true, until corporation x or y decides to reboot its terms of service agreements. All those wonderful witticisms and random photos you posted, (some might say spammed), to your friends and family, may now no longer be viewable. When you consider the number of digital platforms that have gone by the wayside, it is probably the norm to assume that they may not last more than one or two generations. At least handwritten diaries and printed photographs have the ability to last for many decades, give or take the vagaries of how they are treated and stored.
Does legacy even matter? We can’t compel anyone else to remember us, and even our own family, after two generations will have less and less to hang their memories upon. Great artists will live on via their music, words or deeds, Sinead O’Connor, Frida Khalo, and whoever your own personal favourites are. At the same time they will also drift in and out of fashion and popularity too, competing with other trends, moods and flavours. It is hard to even curate your legacy, as artists have their ups and downs, yes looking at you Bob D here.
What about for the rest of us? Well planting trees does seem like something that is always worth doing. Sure they may not all survive, but if you lay 50 to 200 down on a regular basis, you are at least priming the pump to try and leave something behind. Perhaps also treading lightly too is a worthwhile goal, simply trying to do no harm as you move through life and interact with people, animals, nature and places. In many ways humanity has done so much damage to the planet maybe we should be thinking about how to leave as little legacy as possible, rather than carving out yet another human scratch on the surface of the earth.
