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Remembrance
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initially written in 2002.
What were your ancestors doing one thousand years ago? Don’t know, do you?
Unless you belong to one of the very few families who have kept close track, you don’t even know exactly what your ancestors were doing 500 years ago. I can make a few guesses about my ancestors, though. A thousand years ago, some of my ancestors were peacefully farming, while some other set of my ancestors made a habit of raiding their farms. Undoubtedly, this is not the whole picture, but it’s enough for me.
The point is this: do you want to be remembered, and if so, as part of which group: the peaceful ones, or the attackers?
If you want to be remembered tomorrow, be yourself. Most of the people you talk to today will remember you, even if it’s not till someone asks them.
If you want to be remembered next week, make someone happy. Make them laugh, and they will remember you. Alternately, you could cut them off in traffic, slow them down on the freeway, and ruin their commute. They’ll remember your license number in case they run into you again.
If you want to be remembered next month, help someone out when they have a flat and refuse to let them pay you. If that’s not what you have in mind, then make a point of keying someone’s car while they’re in a store.
If you want to be remembered next year, a few kind words at the right moment may just do the job. If that ain’t what you’re after, mug somebody right after they get paid.
If you want to be remembered a decade from now, be a good friend. A decade from now, people will remember you if you were famous, even if you aren’t then. A decade from now, people will remember you if you kill one of their family members.
If you want to be remembered a century from now, be a parent, be a grandparent. If you do both well, your family will remember you with love. Of course, if you want lots of people to remember you, the best route is politics. That or serial murder. Everyone remembers Jack the Ripper.
If you want to be remembered a thousand years from now, you have some very limited options. You can:
A. Be the first man(or woman) to set foot on a different planet. (Armstrong)
B. Become a physicist and come up with a ‘Theory of Everything’ that actually holds water. (Einstein)
C. Scrawl your name across the ages in letters so large they can never be forgotten or erased. Let fire be your pen, and blood be your ink. (Hitler, Stalin)
If you want to be remembered a million years from now, I suggest going for a walk on Pluto and opening your helmet, as that’s the only way your body or your memory might be intact a million years from now.
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