In my post last month, I speculated about what an intelligent race of beings might want to leave behind to mark their existence and, after having decided upon the content, how they might preserve messages that could be interpreted in a meaningful way by intelligent beings in some distant future.
Perhaps a first step in answering this question is to bring the question "down to earth", so to speak, in a much more familiar context. Because all of us, in one way or another, and at some point in our lives, ponder over our posterities: what we would like to leave behind or bequeath as testaments to our existence.
Years ago, when I was a young man, I used to encounter, on my daily commute to work, an overpass that spanned the highway on which was scrawled, in big letters, "Kathy Keller, I love you". It so happened that I was taking an undergraduate class in English Composition, and the instructor gave us an assignment to pick any object or experience in our lives, and write about it: first in a postive context, and then in a negative context. I chose this overpass graffiti. In my positive composition, I extolled the powerful sentiment embodied in that graffiti, and how it imbued a dreary piece of public architecture with expressions of timeless love and devotion, thereby overcoming and transcending the cold, lifeless, impersonal constructions that permeate our modern landscape.. In my negative composition, I excoriated the self-absorbed delinquents who thoughtlessly defaced a piece of public property because they thought that the exaggerated importance of their personal dramas justified it.
I don't know who Kathy Keller is (or was), nor do I have a clue who the ardent lover was who made her name familiar to millions of highway commuters over a span of many years. For all I know, their relationship was a fleeting one, and the lovers moved on to other romantic liaisons long before the public testimonial of their particular romance was finally blotted out from public view. But there was something genuinely poignant about that highway graffiti. For a stretch of time, someone left a simple but touching legacy of his existence, declaring, in essence: "I lived, and I loved." Is there anything really more genuinely important to say about one's time in this world?
During the past twenty-four hours, my computer had crashed, and it put me into something of a panic. This computer has really become a primary nexus of my own existence. I use it for carrying out many if not most of the important projects that I am engaged in. There are records of the correspondences that I have had with all of the people who have been an important part of my life. And, in this computer there are written journals and transcriptions of journals that cover periods of my life going all the way back to the age of fifteen. Now, I should say that I have always endeavored to make copies of the more important files in my computer, and I have an external drive that regularly backs up my files. But still, the thought that I might lose even a part of what is saved on this computer (perhaps because the crash was due to a virus which also affected my external drive) was a terrifying one. It would be like a part of the record of my own existence was permanently ripped away and destroyed. Fortunately, I was able to bring the computer back up and running today, and of course the first thing I did was make additional remote copies of my important files.
But I wonder: after I am dead and gone, who is really going to care about what was on this computer? Who will miss its contents? Of what use or interest are even my journals to anyone else? Turning the question around, why would I be interested in the written records of anyone else's existence? What would motivate me to preserve them, read them, study them? I have, of course, read the biographies of other human beings, just as every reader of this blog probably has. Why? Answering just for myself, I would say that what drew me to read these biographies was that I felt these individuals had left a tangible, positive legacy in their accomplishments, and so I wanted to see what it was about their character, their upbringing, their religious views, and philosophy of life that might have accounted for their successes. Winston Churchill, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, St. Paul, Clarence Darrow, Gandhi, and Benjamin Disraeli - these were persons who to me seemed to make a difference in their lives, in a lasting and beneficial way. Of course, I have been motivated to read about the lives of other individuals who were not necessarily world-changers - Houdini, Harpo Marx, William Shatner, and even Moe Howard of the Three Stooges come to mind - but in this case it was simply that I had grown - through reading about their exploits or seeing their performances - to want to know more about them. (We all, if we are completely honest, must admit to a prurient interest in the private lives of our favorite entertainers.) And then there was the interest to read about persons who had not left a positive legacy, but rather a negative one - like Hitler, Albert Speer, and the decadent Roman Caesars who succeeded Augustus - and in this case - aside from prurient curiosity - the interest was motivated to learn what had been responsible in these men's lives for making the bad choices, or choosing the dark course, that they did. Finally, there was an interest in the lives of world changers whose lasting legacy was not unequivocally good or evil, but nonetheless important and significant, such as Napoleon's.
I suppose, too, that I might like to know more of the details of the lives of persons who I cared about in a more immediate and personal way. I might also be motivated to read biographies of others who faced challenges in their lives similar to ones that I have encountered, or who had similar goals and motivations.
But as time moves inexorably forward, spanning generations, and centuries, and millenia, will the lives that we see as important or meaningful today be regarded as such then, if they are remembered at all? In some distant future age, when the civilizations in existence today have fallen and faded from memory, who will care about the exploits of a Washington, a Lincoln, a Churchill, or a Gandhi? Who will want to study and learn the lessons of their lives? What tangible legacy will these men have really left behind, if any?
Maybe, in the end, the most important, most enduring legacy of each of our lives will be a very simple one. Perhaps it will even be the message embodied in that highway overpass graffiti:
I lived, and I loved.
