Remembrance
Everyone wants to be remembered fondly, long after we are dead, some ambitious ones amongst us even want to be remembered forever, which seems weird considering our certain mortality, howbeit it also ties in squarely with our innate drive for eternity.
Why?
To ask why we seek remembrance is akin to asking why we seek food. It is a good question but does not merit much consideration, as this clearly is an offshoot of an innate need to live forever despite being in the flesh, even as eating is an offshoot of an innate need to sustain a life that will inevitably end.
What?
So a question that merits much consideration is:
What then must one commit time and energy to in order to optimally achieve the need of remembrance?
Achilles visits his mother Thetis, he intends to decide to or not to join Agamemnon’s Greek forces against Troy. She has some choice words for her beloved son:
“If you stay in Larissa, you will find peace, you will find a wonderful woman, you will have sons and daughters and they will have children. And they will love you. When you are gone they will remember you. But when your children are dead and their children after them your name will be lost. If you go to Troy glory will be yours. They will write stories about your victories for thousands of years. The world will remember your name…”
Thank you Thetis, I love Troy.
There are two ‘things’ we produce that live on after we are physically dead and lost in the sea of sand for others alive to walk all over. Which helps us narrow the what question to two straits:
- Our children.
- Our works.
Which of the above will provide us the optimum path to attain remembrance? Or will both be viable?
Children
Solomon the son of David, king of Israel was reckoned to have had 700 wives and 300 concubines, a pretty large harem for one man, who in two years would not have made a round with each woman. Solomon was highly blessed and overflowing into subsequent years, glorious.
From that large number of women ‘lovers’, if we can call them lovers, one would assume Solomon had many children that ought to amaze us all for generations to come, but we only have record of three(3) children, Rehoboam his successor, and two daughters, Taphath and Basmath.
Shall we assume Solomon did not have more than three children? That would be absurd. Or shall we assume the scribes failed to take note to mention a glaringly vast number of children the king had?
Either way you look at it, it does not bode well for remembrance by reason of the number of children one has, made all the more interesting when you discover that Solomon is not discussed today for the children he had or did not.
As an undergraduate, I once saw a mad pregnant woman, and soon caught myself wondering what sort of life the child will be subjected to out of no choice or fault of his or hers - the world can be cruel. Continued to wondering why God did not restrict pregnancy or child bearing in general only to those who can take good care of those kids.
Wishful thinking on my part, but it clearly shows that bearing kids, having children, is in no way a significant achievement, even teenagers playing around and the mentally unstable can bear kids.
To make matters more interesting, some who had a hard upbringing might come to resenting their parents for bearing them.
So much for remembrance through child bearing.
The arguments above are not in any way a push against bearing kids, please keep the frame of reference in the light of the discussion – remembrance.
Works
Steve Jobs had children but we remember him not for the kids he had, rather for the technological form factors he introduced to our lives and consciousness.
Albert Einstein had kids, but we remember him rather for, E = mc2.
Achilles had a son Neoptolemus, but Thetis presciently looked far and saw the future, for here I am three thousand, two hundred and eighty (3,280) years after, writing about Achilles. The world truly remembers Achilles’ for his victories on the battle field.
Jesus had no child, yet, billions worship him daily by reason of the works he wrought.
I might be out of the loop, but the last time I checked my memory, I do not have anyone I admire in my head that got there by reason of the number of kids they produced. Maybe you do, but certainly not me.
But
But can’t one be fondly remembered by one’s own children after one is gone as against just producing kids?
Thetis did mention that option to Achilles and it is absolutely true.
Parents who give all of their love, not to please themselves and their desires, rather to set up their children for the best possible life, are fondly remembered, even to the second generation after them, for most tend to also see their grandchildren.
So is being a good parent the best means of being remembered after you are dead?
Scale
Getting remembrance through your offspring is nice but does not scale and fizzles out when they pass on, for their own children to remember them before they pass on, ad infinitum.
I do not know my great grandparents, not out of ill will on my part or my parent’s part, rather, the passage of time sweeps their memory away. We only have so much storage space upstairs.
However, getting remembered for your works scales beyond one’s biological connections.
A minimal example will be you reading this post, though in all likelihood I do not have a biological family line that can be reasonably traced to you, yet I have, by producing this article, crafted a space for myself in your head.
Although I do have a direct biological connection with some of you who are reading this, *winks.
So that either by your children, for being a good parent, or through your works, you get remembered.
In choosing which to focus on then, the significant question is:
To what scale or extent do you desire to be remembered? Or better still, how ambitious are you?
“I want what all men want, I just want it more”
That was Achilles answering Briseis on why he was in Troy.
If forever or a long time scale as we still speak of Jesus, Achilles and Julio Cesar today, after the bones from your body are all dust, bet on your works, do things that are difficult, give the world what it does not know how to get yet, your name will not be easily lost in the shuffle of time.
If not so ambitious, your children will suffice, be a good parent lest your memory be trashed the moment you go 6 feet under the ground.
And if you will be perfect, aim for both.
Thank you for reading.