I want to be remembered

Something has been on my mind lately.

When you pick up a history book (or any textbook, really), there are names of people who contributed to the discourse, who added something, whose insights made them part of their field of study forever. Their voices will always be heard. They will not be forgotten. Reinterpreted or critiqued, maybe, but not forgotten.

You read about these people and you get to know him. Their lives are documented. What they liked and disliked is recorded, what they hoped and dreamed is saved for posterity, their importance not only known, but felt.

We live now in an age where there are so many voices, so many brilliant people, all struggling to be heard over the din of the discourse. We're also entering a moment in history when the very notion of "great people" is problematic. In the world we are fighting to create, no one will be more important than another.

But..I want to be remembered. I want my voice to resonate with the future. One of my greatest fears is that everything I've gone through, everything I've learned, all the things I want to add to the discourse that needs to be heard...it's all being done by people whose voices are louder than mine. They're also more skilled than me. Every time I open my mouth to speak, I find that someone else has spoken those very words much more eloquently than I would have.

Everything I've learned, every insight I've struggled to gain, is a small whimper in a thunderstorm. No one will remember me for my ideas. I will leave behind no legacy, and but for a few people dear to me, I will be forgotten. No one will ever read about me the way students read about Kierkegaard. Nothing that came from the core of who I am will contribute to the betterment of humanity.

Will God notice? Will the universe keep me in its memory after I'm gone? Will my passing be noted at all? Am I egoistic for crying over this in a time of unprecedented global suffering, when so many others have it worse than me?

I feel so small.

Hideo Kojima once created a character called Solidus, who became an important part of my childhood. He said:

"All I want is to be remembered by other people, by history...what is our legacy if we cannot pass the torch? Proof of our existence, a mark of some sort..."

I want there to be proof to future generations that I lived.