Remember those lyrics? "Fame, I'm gonna live forever..." Once the first line is recalled, most of us suddenly get an "ear worm", riding through our heads, never letting us go, or at least not for a bit. They can be pesky critters, at least until they've served a purpose. What do we get from this particular one while we try to figure out how to get rid of it?
A lot of people think they find fame, when what they really get, I will argue, is merely celebrity. It comes, it soon goes, another takes its place. "Influencers" experience celebrity, and find they have followers who copy them instead of finding their own paths. Either they haven't a clue what their own paths are, or just decide the celebrity will rub off on them. Other celebrities find what they have gained is notoriety, being known for something destructive. They also have something fleeting, and it usually winds up not even having any use. Compare them with vultures, the real ones, not a word used to (mis)describe bad behavior. Those birds are cleaners, ridding the environment of rot, of bad smells, of diseases growing in dead flesh which, on passing through theirs, not only become harmless but benefit the earth with fertilizer where something new can grow. Think of the birds as having an asshole with a purpose, rather than simply being a person identifiable as an asshole with a stench. That's if you bother to think of them at all.
There is of course a good fame, one that is useful, productive, heroic, beautiful, something to be emulated. I'm sure a list of people with those kinds of fame just ran through your heads. I think of Beethoven, of Abe Lincoln, of George Washington Carver and Michelangelo right off the bat. They have found ways of living "forever". That's if we take a tiny bit of liberty with the term "forever". We can go for up to a few centuries of fame, but forever is a hard sell.
We do know people have done wonderful and amazing things in long ago history, and not have a clue of their names. Consider the people who designed pyramids - no, not the Egyptian ones, for they were often named, but how about the Mayan ones? We know people traveled long distances across oceans thousands of years ago, though their names never survived. Rivers have been channeled in different ways, perhaps for irrigation, perhaps for bathing, and nobody knows whose ideas those were. Why Stonehenge? Why Machu Picchu? And who? Fame? After all those centuries? That's nothing like forever.
I have wondered about those who were responsible for cave art, for pictographs. Stories were told, representations of great hunts depicted, remnants of ceremonies or gods and goddesses left behind to endure through the ages to the point where we can see them, marvel at them, and maybe just wonder a little bit at exactly what they were thinking when they made them. Was somebody thinking "my hand print will be here forever"? How about an ancient version of "Kilroy was here"? Or "everybody will know forever how we attacked and slew the monster", or "we fed/saved our tribe during famine", or "we met some gods"? Might it just have been "Lookie what I can do, does this look like a horse?" Or has it been so long, and humans changed so much, that we actually have no clue about the whys of what was done and are misinterpreting everything we see on those rocks? Thousand of years later, here is proof of forerunners, yet they have total anonymity, and not fame. We marvel at the product, not the producers.
Will this be what we leave behind? Imagine some future residents on this planet digging up remnants of our civilization. Will they recognize them as not natural, or think they are just part of the world as is and always was? We who have been paying attention understand that we face a mass extinction event, soon in geological terms, undetermined in the human scale of time. We are the cause this time around, and are already seeing the signs of what's to come. Every huge era replacing the last has different life forms emerge to replace what was. We will be replaced, and have no way to guess what will survive, though nearly everybody jokes that nothing kills cockroaches. Whatever our replacements are, what will be left of us that they, should intelligence be part of them, would have a way of understanding?
We will not be remembered. We might be discovered, they way we discover dinosaurs. We are as likely to be thought a plague, as we are a species of builders, or poets, or astronauts. As individuals we won't have existed, just as a species, presuming whatever discovers us has the kind of understanding we have, the curiosity, even some of the traits and practices. There is no knowing, so in short, no fame survives. We will none of us have a "forever".
But there is a drive in many of us to be remembered, most of us in fact. When we think of the person who wishes to always be a shadow, we immediately assume criminal behavior avoiding punishment, or some terrible secret never to be revealed, usually accompanied by guilt or shame. Part of the reward of raising families is knowing those who outlive us will be around to remember us for a while, and stories passed down through the generations of our deeds keep memories of us alive even longer. Being written about, or the act of writing, are other forms of reaching for either fame or just being remembered for some time after we're no longer here.
I confess. I'd like to be remembered after I'm gone. I won't be a ghost haunting people, I won't be a major criminal, I won't discover the cure for some dread disease, I won't be the richest, the oldest, the smartest, the most "-est" anything. I'll just be consistently me, if any person who continues to live and therefore to continue to change, can be said to be consistent. I'll keep writing as long as I'm able and have something I need to say. It's yours to choose if you need to read it, but I choose what and when I need to write. If you remember me by my words, you will remember only a part of me. I edit what goes on paper, as some tales are not mine to tell, and some of mine just won't be shared.
I had a conversation online with somebody last week on this topic. They had contacted a well known expert on a particular topic, offering a nugget of fact and an idea of its importance to that person. It was very well received, and the well known expert gave credit for it. The glow of that recognition was still strong when I heard about about it. This was in the middle of a conversation about "what do I leave behind after I'm gone?", the the person I was communicating with very aware of how short a time they had left, with health issues limiting future contributions, presumably. I let them know how our conversations had impacted me, and in return, heard how my words had impacted them. Now, I neither have, nor will ever, meet this person, for various reasons. Yet we both can still affect others. And one hope of both of us is that during whatever time remains, we each can have an effect on others, that we can add something positive to their lives, and that for at least some while, we will be remembered.
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