A line that author David McCullough wrote about historical figures struck a cord with me.
He said, the past was simply somebody else’s present. The people living during those times had no more ability predict the future than we have living in our present moment today. They didn’t know if the actions they took were going to result in catastrophic failures, monumental successes or were anything remarkable beyond what they did every day.
I think about this often when considering the past. The lives of many people who made long-lasting, world-changing impacts on society are often summed up in a few lines on Wikipedia.
Cleopatra, the Romans, the Mayans and Incas built cities, monuments and pyramids that are still awe inspiring today. We know some things about them. I’m sure much of knowledge is based on connection, supposition and guessing. What I’m even more certain of is that there were thousands of generations of everyday people living through those same times who have left no trace of their lives nor memories of them.
I witness people disappear from public consciousness every day. It’s part of everyday life. If you’re lucky (I guess), someone who cared about you might remember you after you are gone. Your memory might even live on through snippets and stories for 2 generations to those people’s children. I believe that it is even more likely that memories of you will fade even faster than your remains.
Legacy seems like a false promise to me. Like Heaven. Or Hell. You can wish for it to be true. You can believe it will be true. That doesn’t make it true. But whatever. If it helps you get through the day, that’s probably good enough.
Are we living through historical times? Maybe. We will be remembered for it? Not much I suspect.