One of my favorite pieces of art in the past couple of decades came in the form of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton. The music was amazing, and the way the story of Alexander Hamilton’s life was told left me inspired and awe-struck.
One theme from that play that has really stuck with me over the years has been the idea of leaving a legacy. It’s a tale as old as philosophy. Human beings only have so much time on this earth, and it’s only natural we would have the desire to stick around in one form or another.
For me, this idea has been at the back of my mind for a long time. Most of my life has revolved around death, mostly in the act of trying to find evidence that we go on in some form after our bodies give out. Over the past 15 years or so, though, my focus has shifted from what happens after we die to what we leave behind.
I’ve accepted the fact that I don’t know what will happen to me individually when I’m gone. I don’t think there is a heaven or hell waiting for me, and I don’t believe in a soul or any other kind of spectral being that carries on. As far as I know, as far as any of us truly know, when I take my last breath that’ll be it. There won’t be any darkness or light, fire or air. I cease to exist.
So what comes next then?
My legacy is what I leave behind. The mark I make on this plane of existence to say “I was here”.
Portions of my DNA will live on in my children, and any children they may have, as well as in the human race in general since we all share some DNA. But expecting my children, or anyone else, to be my legacy is way too much to put on them. They are their own people, and each has their own path to forge and mark to leave.
Besides, even if they have children, who have children of their own, I’ll be really old or even dead and gone by that time. My name will only be uttered if one of them cares enough about family history to dig it up and learn about me. While that might be cool, I want to leave a bigger impact.
My primary job right now is writing and researching history. I dig into long-forgotten tales, stories that most people have never heard, and I share them on YouTube and in my writing. In doing so, I do what I can only hope is someday done for me, and I keep the people in the stories alive through sharing their memory.
And that’s actually what a legacy is. Leaving behind a footprint, a piece of yourself in written or spoken word for someone to someday find and share.
Most people will never be lucky enough to have their story, or at least a piece of it, shared a century or more after they’ve shuffled off the mortal coil. Most people will be forgotten to time, lost in the mundanity that makes up most of our everyday lives. They’ll spend 70-80 years or so working, raising a family and paying bills only to be put in a box, lowered in the ground and forgotten about.
Don’t get me wrong, there is no shame in living a normal life, chasing dreams and spending time with loved ones, but I want more than that. I want to be remembered, have my name spoken in a lecture about what life in the late 20th and early to mid-21st century was like. I want to leave an impact that is bigger than myself, something that future historians can look at and enjoy uncovering.
But what does that even look like?
Looping back around to Hamilton, he lived in an age where the ability to read and write was limited, where those skills were necessary if you wanted to get your name and ideas out into the world. The number of written accounts, of individuals sharing their own life story, thoughts, and feelings was severely limited.
In the modern era it is extremely easy to share your thoughts, opinions, and life with the wider world. Sites like YouTube allow anyone with a basic phone to upload videos spouting whatever comes to mind in a given moment. Facebook, Bluesky and other sites allow people to share photos, writing, and thoughts with the world in the blink of an eye.
Historians in a century or two will have a lot more to dig through and dissect when trying to piece together what life from the mid 1990’s and on was like than present day historians have to pick apart life in the late 18th and 19th centuries.
For instance, when I’m digging into stories for my Legends and Tales series, I typically have some limited newspaper articles, the occasional police report or other first-hand account, and that’s about it. I don’t have hundreds of people all writing or recording themselves talking about the event.
In a way, this makes things more difficult as I can only rely on a small number of sources, but it also makes things a lot easier as I don’t have to figure out how reliable the opinion of “Becky_420_69” from Green Bay was.
It also means that the stories I cover, the lives I resurrect through memories, are limited to those deemed worthy of the news. So if I wanted to cover the life of someone who never made the news, I would have to hope their family had some kind of records or information to even try to tell their stories. Even then, if the family didn’t want to share information about their long-deceased relative I would be out of luck.
Coming back to my own legacy, if someone a century and a half from now wanted to cover me, assuming the internet is still around and has been archived properly, they would have no trouble pulling a ton of information about me. I’ve shared so much about myself online, and my story isn’t hard to track down. I’ll hopefully even have at least one memoir complete before I die.
But I’m not the only one who’s shared a ton about myself. Millions of people around the world have done the exact same thing. From blog posts to YouTube videos, Facebook posts, and other social media interaction, there is so much to dig through.
So if I want to leave a legacy, have my story be told long after I’m gone, I have to stick out in some way. It’s the opposite of the problem I have as a modern historian. Instead of digging to find an inkling of information, future historians will have to pick and choose who they want to talk about.
But then, maybe I’m really taking matters into my own hands in a way?
By sharing my story, in my own words, I’m kind of documenting myself. I’m my own future historian. I’m writing my own legacy, leaving an impact in 1’s and 0’s with every keystroke and video. I’m putting things out there to be found someday, long after I’m gone.
Everything I do has a purpose. I want to improve the world, have a positive impact through my writing and videos.
Maybe that impact won’t be big until after I’m gone?
Maybe my true legacy will be felt when someone, someday, discovers this blog or one of my videos or books. Maybe they will be so moved by what they read or see that it helps them get through a tough time.
And maybe that’s all any of us can really hope for. We can’t all be rich and famous, but perhaps we can all leave something behind that makes the world just a little brighter.
“Legacy. What is a legacy?
It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see.”
― Hamilton musical
Comments