LEAVIING SOMETHING BEHIND

I have always been mystified by the reality that being a living creature presents. Existence brings with itself so many questions, the chief of which is “why”?

 I accept that we arrive among strangers that often become central to our lives. We inherit the advances our species has made that have placed us on the top rung of the world order on this planet. We have no idea whether we are the only higher order creatures in the universe. We don’t know for sure whether we are the higher order, only that we are running the show on this tiny galactic spot.

Yet, in spite of this vast panorama of which we are only a tiny part, most of us will spend most of our lives focused on the tiny space we ourselves occupy. The family group we inherit often becomes the focus of our efforts, that and the personal one that we graduate into to form for ourselves. If we don’t get those relationships with the individual strangers we encounter on our trip, sometimes our minds never really work right. This microcosm universe is often the place where we either make it or we don’t.

Some among us, even many of us, somehow manage to erect a wider circle where our personal roles become central. Some of us manage to find the capacity to perform roles that become important to a wider circle, even a vast circle. Who knows what the dynamic is  that makes some people generate that aspiration, that motivation, to devote their lives to tasks that will make the lives of strangers, many of whom they will never meet, better than they would otherwise have been. Indeed, some of those much closer to us, will share the travail that these efforts will require.

Aren’t some of us driven by the need to see in themselves the destiny to leave a larger indelible mark? Life has ushered us into a small circle where our lives can be incredibly important to only another creature besides ourselves. The primary bond that comes into being with our birth, may become less central to us as we proceed through life and widen our circle, but it often remains central to who we are. The primary relationships we form in our lives command our loyalty.

Yet, many of us are driven by a desire, a need, to make that wider impact. Whether it is in our jobs, or in the roles we seek to fill beyond our circle, some of us need to feel we must leave a larger mark on the wall of time. Why is that? Only the individual can answer that question.

The memories we leave with people we have known often long survive our passage. Our family members are the primary bearers of our heritage. Most of us will not leave behind a building bearing our names, or even a wall. Most of us will be eternal only on a scrap of filed paper, or in an electronic code, that bears our name.

Many of us have that urge to make sure we leave something important behind.

If we have had the good fortune to have successfully participated in bringing another live human into existence, we have a fighting chance to have some part of us experience eternity. Many of us want more. Many of us strive, in the work we do during our working days, to bring important things into existence, things that we can point to and say” I did that”. This is particularly so if it improves the quality of the lives of others.

It may be a small thing, or a larger thing, in the vastness of the human reality, but it is O so satisfying if we can point to that “thing”.

 As one of those with that kind of aspiration, I speak from personal experience. Sit beside me for a moment of contemplation, and, if the opportunity arises, I am sure to regale you with those worthwhile smudges on the wall of history for which I feel I may be responsible.

So many of the things we see around us that have improved the quality of people’s lives have been the product of other humans who may have been driven by that motivation. This was the “why” they found behind their own lives. They wanted to leave something worthwhile behind as a product of their efforts, as a product of their passage. We can only applaud that and recognize that desire in our own lives.