Do you feel sad about the fact that you'll probably die within 100 years (or less) and you (well... that's most of us tbh) can't do much to leave a significant positive legacy?
What makes you think you can't leave a significant positive legacy?
You can get involved with your neighbors. Invest in your local community. Adopt an orphan or volunteer at a women's shelter.
There's a million things you can do to make a significant impact. Every person you invest in is another person who can go and invest in others.
This idea that anything that's below the national or worldwide level isn't significant is a cancer on society.
There are people who lived hundreds of years ago who, sure, you'll probably have never heard of if you don't live in the same area as me, but who have had huge impact on the community. The same is true for where you live. I promise you.
Bring your eyes down, and look to make your legacy local. I promise you it's possible. And I promise you that it's significant.
... can look like being the best person you can be, for your own sense of morality/justice, for whatever you believe in, for whatever you feel is what, and how, a decent person should be.
Even if someone says that altruism is nonsensical or strictly meaningless/impossible, the fact that somebody even aimed toward it is remarkable nonetheless.
I'm gonna do it, I'm bustin' out the Architect scene:
Neo walks to the door on his left chooses to reject the false dichotomy he has been presented.
The Architect: Humph. Hope, it is the quintessential human delusion, simultaneously the source of your greatest strength, and your greatest weakness.
Neo: If I were you, I would hope that we don’t meet again.
No. I think too many people obsess about what happens after they're gone rather than living their life to the fullest. One doesn't need to make it into history books to leave an impact on the world around them.
The following is a story I was told as a child that I think puts some if this in perspective:
One day a man was walking along the beach when he noticed a boy picking something up and gently throwing it into the ocean. Approaching the boy, he asked, "What are you doing?"
The youth replied, "Throwing starfish back into the ocean. The surf is up and the tide is going out. If I don't throw them back, they'll die."
"Son," the man said, "don't you realize there are miles and miles of beach and hundreds of starfish? You can't make a difference!"
After listening politely, the boy bent down, picked up another starfish, and threw it back into the surf. Then, smiling at the man, he said, "I made a difference for that one."
Lol, I'm probably dead in 30 years or less. I'm over half way there because of a major health condition I lost the genetic lottery on. It is what it is. I like to think I've raised a child capable of empathy, that's all I can do.
Don't care about legacy either, just hope the people I care about have happy memories if they think about me until they pass away. No need for my memory to pass on to future generations or anything.
In a couple of generations all memory and signs of your existence will be wiped out anyway. Enjoying what's in front of you now and doing the good you can for the few people you can affect is easily enough.
Not really. It's mostly old age I worry about - not dying.
I'm however slightly optimistic that I might be able to reach so called longevity escape velocity during my lifetime due to advances in medical science and life extension therapies.
I agree. Dying is way, way less scary to me than a slow decline with dementia or a long, painful battle with cancer. No issues with death, I just hope it's quick.
It's not that hard to leave a significant positive legacy. It only needs to be person-sized. Did you have one pretty good child? Congratulations, you did it! Did you have, like, three good friends? Give yourself a big ol' check.
These aren't easy, but they aren't in general un-do-able.
I don't care. Our civilization will collapse, the earth will become uninhabitable and the universe will die at some point. So whatever we leave behind ultimately doesn't matter anyway. I try to make life as enjoyable as possible for myself and my GF and try to be a positive influence for my friends, family, colleagues and neighbourhood. When it's over, it's over and I'm not going to worry about what I'm leaving behind. I'm an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things and I'm just fine with that.
No kids and no legacy to worry about sounds quite good to me actually.
Most everyone has an innate urge to live forever somehow. It's an expression of our fear of death. They make children, or inventions, or buildings, or artworks, or whatever "legacy" they can think will persist after their death.
It's natural to feel this way. We're wired for it.
The cruel trick is that nothing lasts forever. We yearn for things we can't have.
I'm kinda sad that I probably* won't get to see how this story ends. Do we make it as a species? Do we end up in the Star Trek utopia, or do we wipe ourselves out with our own hubris? But I'm not sad of afraid of dying itself. My legacy will be doing right by my kids and hopefully setting them up to live better lives than I did, and I'm OK with that.
*If I do live long enough to see us wipe ourselves out that will be pretty shit, ngl.
Depends on your definition of "significant positive legacy".
If you're drawn to the fame and notoriety of public figures as a template for this legacy, then I'd say these types of people already put their lives out in public for you to follow as a template. You will likely be seen as a narcissist in some circles.
On the other hand, many games and thinkers instill the rationale that you are the sum of your choices. Your karma - or action logic perhaps - will ripple around you with consequences - intended or not. These choices raise a new legacy of being an example.
A lot of people want to just live their lives in their own peace, make a living, do what they can to support their people. Such folks receive no fame, and no notoriety. They do everything necessary. There's no thanks expected. But they make human life worth it. I'd rather be a part of this example.
Together
Everyone
Accomplishes
More
In many ways, we all entered the same game with the same example of team. We all wake up, work, transit. Everything has to come together in order for us to get back home safely. It has inherent value, and is a "legacy". What I think of as "legacy" is also your heritage and your birthright. You inherited someone's legacy to be possible and to be here.
There are forces that threaten this example. People who want to do violence to it, destroy it, pillage it, profit from it, you have to choose to protect it. They don't want you to see your own worth. They don't want you to see the value in others. They want you to stay small, and deny your heritage. How you protect this example, and the vulnerable, is up to you.
EDIT: I'm just using the terms you and they in a generic sense. I don't literally mean you to single any specific person out. Similarly, I'm not literally talking about "they" like some kind of secret cabal reference. They is an ever changing reference to any kind of opposing force - be it person or system or effect.
Do you feel sad about the fact that you'll probably die within 100 years (or less)
A quote from Richard Dawkins:
We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.We privileged few, who won the lottery of birth against all odds, how dare we whine at our inevitable return to that prior state from which the vast majority have never stirred?
There is a hypothetical set of actions that, if I had taken them last year, would have made me a million dollars. So I just lost a million dollars.
If I took the knowledge in a current human biology textbook and rearranged it in just the right way, I'd come up with the secret to immorality. So I have a chance at immortality but will fail at it.
I could go up to any person and, in theory, have just the right conversation with them to get them to do pretty much anything I wanted. But I don't know that conversation to have. I have lost control of the world, of which I could have been master.
You've heard of Quantum Immortality... but have you heard of Quantum Silver Tongued Devil?
Quantum Hostage Negotiator?
Quantum Worst Possible Yet Most Persuasive Advice Ever Giver?
I've always found this kind of stuff mostly nonsensical.
... what about building a nano (pico? much much smaller?) scale device that takes advantage of the Casimir effect to say, generate ... actually random numbers, not pseudo random numbers?
I may have, at one point. Then I realized that the only reason anyone leaves a 'positive legacy' is because they actively sought to paint themselves that way. In other words, they managed to trick you and everyone else into thinking that it was their singular will that manifested all of this positivity.
Positive legacies are not the product of any one person, they are a collective effort, and the collective shares both the credit and the spoils.
You have to keep in mind, what is a positive legacy? Is it simply being remembered? No, because I've surely planted many trees (I drop seeds where I go) — will anyone remember the man who dropped the seeds?
When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
No. That's a fact of life, being sad about it doesn't do anything and only harms me. So stop worrying about legacy or level of significance and just try to make the world better any way you can.
I will leave a positive legacy, but I'm not concerned when I'm forgotten by time. I've come to terms with the fact that life is for the living, and I'm doing my part to try and make the world a better place for future generations.
No , the heat death of the universe will sort it all out in time. Doesnt mean i dont want things to improve during my time here for us and future generations.
Thats a white hole, a big bang, a pocket dimension unto itself.
Thus we live in some kind of... meta-system of universes, probably no real way to transit between them intact, but... destruction begets a new kind of creation, that you can literally never experience, yet it is real, and it also most likely never 'stops'.
Hyperdimensional Matryoshka dolls, all the way down. ... and up.
Pure anecdotally here, but as im getting older death seems more and more significant and possible and to be feared. Im only in my 30s but somewhere along the line i picked up a self-preservation instinct.
As a kid/teen i was going to live forever. I couldn't die. The biggest fear was waking up in hospital but even that was farfetched to one as invincible as me.
Nowadays though im perpetually aware that one slight misstep could bring me down skull first on a roadside kerb and it could be game over.
My kids are my legacy. Whether that's positive or negative is up to them at this point.
Regardless of that, I used to be terrified of dying. When I was younger because I hadn't experienced or accomplished anything. Heck, George Lucas planned nine Star Wars film's and I couldn't die before I'd seen them all! (In retrospect, maybe that wasn't as important as it seemed at the time.) Getting older it was because my family wasn't ready.
Now I'm in my fifties and my body is already falling apart. My dad and father in law are in better physical shape than me due to back and joint issues. My kids are pretty close to self-sustaining — as much as they'll ever be.
I'm as immortal as someone without big ambitions can be. I'll never have a statue or exhibit in a museum or book written about me, but I'd be pretty happy with a park bench in a scenic spot. I don't want to be buried, but it would be nice to have that as a place anyone who cares to could go and remember me — not some gaudy marble surrounded by death.
What more could I want other than people who love me and remember me for a time? And between now and the end, I've got things to keep me busy. Computer games and learning woodworking. Travel. Continuing to grow as a person. I'm not done living by any means, but I'm okay with dying. I imagine it'll suck at the time, but all things end. Even the universe.
None of us individually truly leave a lasting legacy. Maybe some get to have their name repeated a little longer than others but that's about it.
Everything that's happened in human history happened because of communities of people ... they might have had a leader but even the leader wouldn't have made any of it happen without large groups of people. And every single one of those people had a small part to play in making it all happen.
We all have a small part to play during our lives and together all our small parts add up to great things.
I do yeah. It takes like 1/3 of our lives to mature, 1/3 to do something, and the last 1/3 is to try to match the performance of what we were able to achieve before we wither away.
The desire to leave a legacy is really a desire for immortality-lite. I think that if you truly overcome your fear of death, you'll get over this. I'm more interested in knowing what happens next, and how it all works. I'm slightly salty that I will never get those answers.
I thought about this a lot and I’m pretty burnt out at all the horrible shit I’ve seen so I don’t really fear death but like everyone else I obviously don’t want it to be horrible. That being said as an agnostic I think that living a life where you do your best to be a good person is a more powerful legacy than you realize. Billions of people caring about eachother and doing their best makes a huge impact on the future. Sure we have fun learning about those who had impressive monuments built in their name or were leaders in some kind of movement but progress is multilateral and made from a million failures before a success. good or bad history was created by billions of unknowns and that is what really made up history and culture. We really have the power collectively to shape the future not as much with individualism unless you were born into privilege but with working diligently everyday to reinforce your values. Just make your little piece of the world better everyday and it will make a difference over time
"Significant" is pretty subjective overall. In the end, there will always be critics to whatever you do. People in the US have been brainwashed into thinking people like GW and Christopher Columbus were good people until people connected the dots and realized they were in fact not. I won't be the one to cure cancer or end war in my lifetime, but the most I can do at this point is to give someone else hope.
Just being a role model for someone or treating someone like a human being is still significant if you think about it. People get attached to the romanticized idea of being hailed a hero for something "significant" that happened, but usually being that kind of stereotype involves a type of sacrifice. This is why comic book heroes usually have tragic back stories. It is not so black and white.
We really can only do much impact to our immediate area, most significant legacy positive legacy building is creating and propagating movements. If you want to feel like you’re making positive change then do things that help the people around you, the smallest things like shifting to local mom and pop shopping vs big retail for a couple purchases can help keep money local and supports them raising their families there in your town. Same as just picking up litter you might see as you walk through a park, you never know who’s watching and who it might influence to do the same or to stop littering over time. Not everything has to be macro but all the small decisions do add up to a pretty large change around you that will be noticed.
Yep. Im also terrified of actually dying. I want to die in my sleep so I dont see it coming, but I dont want to miss the experience of death because everyone gets it and you can only really do it once so it really is once in a lifetime experience. Except I wont have any life to remember the experience so it doesnt matter. And since it doesnt matter why do I want it. But what if it hurts?
No. Don't want kids either and don't feel bad about not leaving a "legacy". I'm just trying to not go insane, which sometimes works better, sometimes works worse. I rather live only 30 years but am mostly healthy and spend my money on things I like, with people I love. Sadly I'm still too afraid to quit my job and do what I really like (or find out what exactly that is in the first place).
Eh. Marks on the world are hardly ever single instances of action by single people.
Way I see it, if I can end up contributing in whatever small ways to better myself, my neighbors, my country, and the world through whatever small acts I can then I will.
I do what I do for the sake of belief in myself, and those around me, if something comes out of it then all the better, if not then better fail than never have tried.
Nah, I'll probably kill myself within 5 years and leave whatever money I have leftover to some friends who could use it. I'd much rather be forgotten than leave a legacy
When I think of it, I try to look at the bright side that I won't have to worry about anything after I die. It is still sad though. I hope I have time to do the things I want to do before I die.
Well, I take this as a challenge. Both the "dying" thing (I'm young enough I suspect we will reach Longevity Escape Velocity before I'm old enough it wouldn't help me - and if such technology were to be hoarded, I'd advocate actively leaking any such information and enabling mass production nya), and the "doing something positive to change the world" thing.
So I wouldn't say it makes me sad. Instead it makes me determined and extremely stubborn (I also enjoy myself, though - not here constantly obsessing over death even if I consider it highly unethical and a major violation of morphological autonomy that must be resisted by any means necessary).
What millennial doesn't have a death wish right about now. We were left to die by the previous generations and have gone through how many once in a lifetime events now?
People have being saying stuff like this for hundreds of years. We’re still in a massive state of transition following the creation of the internet and every culture in the world just crashing into each other online.
There’s so many ways the world is a better place than it used to be. My kid watches a TV show about a little girl who has two Dads, a few decades ago that would’ve been basically illegal. Everyone’s way more understanding of mental health issues rather than just telling people to “man up”. There’s other things but I can’t be bothered making a wall of text.
What makes you think you can't leave a significant positive legacy?
You can get involved with your neighbors. Invest in your local community. Adopt an orphan or volunteer at a women's shelter.
There's a million things you can do to make a significant impact. Every person you invest in is another person who can go and invest in others.
This idea that anything that's below the national or worldwide level isn't significant is a cancer on society.
There are people who lived hundreds of years ago who, sure, you'll probably have never heard of if you don't live in the same area as me, but who have had huge impact on the community. The same is true for where you live. I promise you.
Bring your eyes down, and look to make your legacy local. I promise you it's possible. And I promise you that it's significant.
No. I'm here while I'm here, and I do my best to help people, when I can and am capable anyways.
There's no stopping the clock, everyone has their time..
I think part of life is learning that there's nothing wrong with living a simple/normal life, and that there is a beauty in it too.
ikr being a public figure and leading a high-stress life seems pretty hellish tbh.
"Rage against the dying of the light"...
... can look like being the best person you can be, for your own sense of morality/justice, for whatever you believe in, for whatever you feel is what, and how, a decent person should be.
Even if someone says that altruism is nonsensical or strictly meaningless/impossible, the fact that somebody even aimed toward it is remarkable nonetheless.
I'm gonna do it, I'm bustin' out the Architect scene:
No. I think too many people obsess about what happens after they're gone rather than living their life to the fullest. One doesn't need to make it into history books to leave an impact on the world around them.
The following is a story I was told as a child that I think puts some if this in perspective:
Lol, I'm probably dead in 30 years or less. I'm over half way there because of a major health condition I lost the genetic lottery on. It is what it is. I like to think I've raised a child capable of empathy, that's all I can do.
Nope.
Don't care about legacy either, just hope the people I care about have happy memories if they think about me until they pass away. No need for my memory to pass on to future generations or anything.
In a couple of generations all memory and signs of your existence will be wiped out anyway. Enjoying what's in front of you now and doing the good you can for the few people you can affect is easily enough.
Not really. It's mostly old age I worry about - not dying.
I'm however slightly optimistic that I might be able to reach so called longevity escape velocity during my lifetime due to advances in medical science and life extension therapies.
I agree. Dying is way, way less scary to me than a slow decline with dementia or a long, painful battle with cancer. No issues with death, I just hope it's quick.
I don’t care about leaving a legacy. I’m here to enjoy myself as much as possible in this very fucked up world.
It's not that hard to leave a significant positive legacy. It only needs to be person-sized. Did you have one pretty good child? Congratulations, you did it! Did you have, like, three good friends? Give yourself a big ol' check.
These aren't easy, but they aren't in general un-do-able.
I don't care. Our civilization will collapse, the earth will become uninhabitable and the universe will die at some point. So whatever we leave behind ultimately doesn't matter anyway. I try to make life as enjoyable as possible for myself and my GF and try to be a positive influence for my friends, family, colleagues and neighbourhood. When it's over, it's over and I'm not going to worry about what I'm leaving behind. I'm an insignificant speck in the grand scheme of things and I'm just fine with that.
No kids and no legacy to worry about sounds quite good to me actually.
Most everyone has an innate urge to live forever somehow. It's an expression of our fear of death. They make children, or inventions, or buildings, or artworks, or whatever "legacy" they can think will persist after their death.
It's natural to feel this way. We're wired for it.
The cruel trick is that nothing lasts forever. We yearn for things we can't have.
I'm kinda sad that I probably* won't get to see how this story ends. Do we make it as a species? Do we end up in the Star Trek utopia, or do we wipe ourselves out with our own hubris? But I'm not sad of afraid of dying itself. My legacy will be doing right by my kids and hopefully setting them up to live better lives than I did, and I'm OK with that.
*If I do live long enough to see us wipe ourselves out that will be pretty shit, ngl.
I'm more upset about everything that's going to happen in the far future that I won't get to see
Depends on your definition of "significant positive legacy".
If you're drawn to the fame and notoriety of public figures as a template for this legacy, then I'd say these types of people already put their lives out in public for you to follow as a template. You will likely be seen as a narcissist in some circles.
On the other hand, many games and thinkers instill the rationale that you are the sum of your choices. Your karma - or action logic perhaps - will ripple around you with consequences - intended or not. These choices raise a new legacy of being an example.
A lot of people want to just live their lives in their own peace, make a living, do what they can to support their people. Such folks receive no fame, and no notoriety. They do everything necessary. There's no thanks expected. But they make human life worth it. I'd rather be a part of this example.
Together
Everyone
Accomplishes
More
In many ways, we all entered the same game with the same example of team. We all wake up, work, transit. Everything has to come together in order for us to get back home safely. It has inherent value, and is a "legacy". What I think of as "legacy" is also your heritage and your birthright. You inherited someone's legacy to be possible and to be here.
There are forces that threaten this example. People who want to do violence to it, destroy it, pillage it, profit from it, you have to choose to protect it. They don't want you to see your own worth. They don't want you to see the value in others. They want you to stay small, and deny your heritage. How you protect this example, and the vulnerable, is up to you.
EDIT: I'm just using the terms you and they in a generic sense. I don't literally mean you to single any specific person out. Similarly, I'm not literally talking about "they" like some kind of secret cabal reference. They is an ever changing reference to any kind of opposing force - be it person or system or effect.
Every. Damned. Day.
Just trying to be a good person is pretty tough sometimes. People take advantage. It sucks.
A quote from Richard Dawkins:
I love playing lil hypothetical games like that.
There is a hypothetical set of actions that, if I had taken them last year, would have made me a million dollars. So I just lost a million dollars.
If I took the knowledge in a current human biology textbook and rearranged it in just the right way, I'd come up with the secret to immorality. So I have a chance at immortality but will fail at it.
I could go up to any person and, in theory, have just the right conversation with them to get them to do pretty much anything I wanted. But I don't know that conversation to have. I have lost control of the world, of which I could have been master.
Omg I get triggered by these hypotheticals.
There's a hypothetical timeline where, say, if a time traveler went back to my childhood, they could brainwash me with the alt-right pipeline.
Like... okay that's maybe enough hypotheticals... Very uncanny to think about.
You've heard of Quantum Immortality... but have you heard of Quantum Silver Tongued Devil?
Quantum Hostage Negotiator?
Quantum Worst Possible Yet Most Persuasive Advice Ever Giver?
I've always found this kind of stuff mostly nonsensical.
... what about building a nano (pico? much much smaller?) scale device that takes advantage of the Casimir effect to say, generate ... actually random numbers, not pseudo random numbers?
Much more practical.
I may have, at one point. Then I realized that the only reason anyone leaves a 'positive legacy' is because they actively sought to paint themselves that way. In other words, they managed to trick you and everyone else into thinking that it was their singular will that manifested all of this positivity.
Positive legacies are not the product of any one person, they are a collective effort, and the collective shares both the credit and the spoils.
You have to keep in mind, what is a positive legacy? Is it simply being remembered? No, because I've surely planted many trees (I drop seeds where I go) — will anyone remember the man who dropped the seeds?
— God, Futurama
You don't have to earn a Nobel Piece prize to leave a significant positive legacy. You can plant a tree, help someone or teach a skill to a kid..
No. That's a fact of life, being sad about it doesn't do anything and only harms me. So stop worrying about legacy or level of significance and just try to make the world better any way you can.
It helps me to think about it like this:
The shittier the world's circumstances, the brighter and longer a single good deed will shine.
Indifferent.
I've been through things that should have killed me.
I'm just happy the ride isn't over yet.
Being stardust that can think about what stardust is, is pretty neat.
... Maybe I'll try to make an apple pie sometime soon...
Not really. It would be cool to leave a mark on the world, but once I'm dead, I won't be around to care.
I am more enthusiastic about that are already people living now that will see the year 2100.
Omg, my brain just momentarily imagined being in 2100... me bring like about 100 years old...
like... nah, I doubt I'd live that long to get on that timeline...
I will leave a positive legacy, but I'm not concerned when I'm forgotten by time. I've come to terms with the fact that life is for the living, and I'm doing my part to try and make the world a better place for future generations.
No , the heat death of the universe will sort it all out in time. Doesnt mean i dont want things to improve during my time here for us and future generations.
I think that it just goes on forever.
Sufficiently sized black hole in our universe?
Thats a white hole, a big bang, a pocket dimension unto itself.
Thus we live in some kind of... meta-system of universes, probably no real way to transit between them intact, but... destruction begets a new kind of creation, that you can literally never experience, yet it is real, and it also most likely never 'stops'.
Hyperdimensional Matryoshka dolls, all the way down. ... and up.
No way to know 'where' you are in all that.
Looking forward to it actually... Will finally get some peace and quiet...
Curious, how old are you? Like... I heard that older people seem to accept the idea of death better than younger people so I'm just curious.
When I was 18, I had a major existential crisis lol.
Pure anecdotally here, but as im getting older death seems more and more significant and possible and to be feared. Im only in my 30s but somewhere along the line i picked up a self-preservation instinct.
As a kid/teen i was going to live forever. I couldn't die. The biggest fear was waking up in hospital but even that was farfetched to one as invincible as me.
Nowadays though im perpetually aware that one slight misstep could bring me down skull first on a roadside kerb and it could be game over.
Wrong side of my 30s.
My kids are my legacy. Whether that's positive or negative is up to them at this point.
Regardless of that, I used to be terrified of dying. When I was younger because I hadn't experienced or accomplished anything. Heck, George Lucas planned nine Star Wars film's and I couldn't die before I'd seen them all! (In retrospect, maybe that wasn't as important as it seemed at the time.) Getting older it was because my family wasn't ready.
Now I'm in my fifties and my body is already falling apart. My dad and father in law are in better physical shape than me due to back and joint issues. My kids are pretty close to self-sustaining — as much as they'll ever be.
I'm as immortal as someone without big ambitions can be. I'll never have a statue or exhibit in a museum or book written about me, but I'd be pretty happy with a park bench in a scenic spot. I don't want to be buried, but it would be nice to have that as a place anyone who cares to could go and remember me — not some gaudy marble surrounded by death.
What more could I want other than people who love me and remember me for a time? And between now and the end, I've got things to keep me busy. Computer games and learning woodworking. Travel. Continuing to grow as a person. I'm not done living by any means, but I'm okay with dying. I imagine it'll suck at the time, but all things end. Even the universe.
Oh well, my mom has a terrible legacy, a legacy filled with depression (aka: me, I'm the pile of depression)
Piles of depression can still be a net force for good. I believe that.
I was, too. We're more than just that, or we can be if we find a way.
None of us individually truly leave a lasting legacy. Maybe some get to have their name repeated a little longer than others but that's about it.
Everything that's happened in human history happened because of communities of people ... they might have had a leader but even the leader wouldn't have made any of it happen without large groups of people. And every single one of those people had a small part to play in making it all happen.
We all have a small part to play during our lives and together all our small parts add up to great things.
I do yeah. It takes like 1/3 of our lives to mature, 1/3 to do something, and the last 1/3 is to try to match the performance of what we were able to achieve before we wither away.
I'm just here to drink, love, and have a good time.
The desire to leave a legacy is really a desire for immortality-lite. I think that if you truly overcome your fear of death, you'll get over this. I'm more interested in knowing what happens next, and how it all works. I'm slightly salty that I will never get those answers.
I thought about this a lot and I’m pretty burnt out at all the horrible shit I’ve seen so I don’t really fear death but like everyone else I obviously don’t want it to be horrible. That being said as an agnostic I think that living a life where you do your best to be a good person is a more powerful legacy than you realize. Billions of people caring about eachother and doing their best makes a huge impact on the future. Sure we have fun learning about those who had impressive monuments built in their name or were leaders in some kind of movement but progress is multilateral and made from a million failures before a success. good or bad history was created by billions of unknowns and that is what really made up history and culture. We really have the power collectively to shape the future not as much with individualism unless you were born into privilege but with working diligently everyday to reinforce your values. Just make your little piece of the world better everyday and it will make a difference over time
"Significant" is pretty subjective overall. In the end, there will always be critics to whatever you do. People in the US have been brainwashed into thinking people like GW and Christopher Columbus were good people until people connected the dots and realized they were in fact not. I won't be the one to cure cancer or end war in my lifetime, but the most I can do at this point is to give someone else hope.
Just being a role model for someone or treating someone like a human being is still significant if you think about it. People get attached to the romanticized idea of being hailed a hero for something "significant" that happened, but usually being that kind of stereotype involves a type of sacrifice. This is why comic book heroes usually have tragic back stories. It is not so black and white.
We really can only do much impact to our immediate area, most significant legacy positive legacy building is creating and propagating movements. If you want to feel like you’re making positive change then do things that help the people around you, the smallest things like shifting to local mom and pop shopping vs big retail for a couple purchases can help keep money local and supports them raising their families there in your town. Same as just picking up litter you might see as you walk through a park, you never know who’s watching and who it might influence to do the same or to stop littering over time. Not everything has to be macro but all the small decisions do add up to a pretty large change around you that will be noticed.
Yep. Im also terrified of actually dying. I want to die in my sleep so I dont see it coming, but I dont want to miss the experience of death because everyone gets it and you can only really do it once so it really is once in a lifetime experience. Except I wont have any life to remember the experience so it doesnt matter. And since it doesnt matter why do I want it. But what if it hurts?
As cheesy as it sounds, our actions really do echo in eternity.
It helps me to think of everyone who was here before me, and be grateful for what i have.
And to see that I am the next in line, to make the world just a little better, than it was when i was born, in the ways that I am able to.
I think my kid’s going to have a robot servant and go to a different planet. I’m well jealous.
No. Don't want kids either and don't feel bad about not leaving a "legacy". I'm just trying to not go insane, which sometimes works better, sometimes works worse. I rather live only 30 years but am mostly healthy and spend my money on things I like, with people I love. Sadly I'm still too afraid to quit my job and do what I really like (or find out what exactly that is in the first place).
I feel sad that I can’t see what my impact will lead to (however small).
I also feel sad that i can’t see how certain new technologies will mature.
No.. I stopped giving a fuck about what people of me decades a ago.
Trying my best, still, not sad since I won't (be able to) care anyway.
I wholeheartedly don't care about any of that. I just go with the flow and give the present moment my full attention.
I have done my best to make the lives of the people around me better, and I have taken joy in life.
What need legacy?
Not really. "Legacy" doesn't mean anything to me as it won't matter when I'm dead because I'm dead.
Eh. Marks on the world are hardly ever single instances of action by single people.
Way I see it, if I can end up contributing in whatever small ways to better myself, my neighbors, my country, and the world through whatever small acts I can then I will.
I do what I do for the sake of belief in myself, and those around me, if something comes out of it then all the better, if not then better fail than never have tried.
Nah, I'll probably kill myself within 5 years and leave whatever money I have leftover to some friends who could use it. I'd much rather be forgotten than leave a legacy
It'd be really fucking nice if people would stop trying to use me as a weapon
Meh, no matter how bad I screw up it will be forgotten
When I think of it, I try to look at the bright side that I won't have to worry about anything after I die. It is still sad though. I hope I have time to do the things I want to do before I die.
I'm sad it will take that long
Well, I take this as a challenge. Both the "dying" thing (I'm young enough I suspect we will reach Longevity Escape Velocity before I'm old enough it wouldn't help me - and if such technology were to be hoarded, I'd advocate actively leaking any such information and enabling mass production nya), and the "doing something positive to change the world" thing.
So I wouldn't say it makes me sad. Instead it makes me determined and extremely stubborn (I also enjoy myself, though - not here constantly obsessing over death even if I consider it highly unethical and a major violation of morphological autonomy that must be resisted by any means necessary).
What millennial doesn't have a death wish right about now. We were left to die by the previous generations and have gone through how many once in a lifetime events now?
With AI devouring human creativity and the world going to absolute shit…
It can’t happen soon enough.
People have being saying stuff like this for hundreds of years. We’re still in a massive state of transition following the creation of the internet and every culture in the world just crashing into each other online.
There’s so many ways the world is a better place than it used to be. My kid watches a TV show about a little girl who has two Dads, a few decades ago that would’ve been basically illegal. Everyone’s way more understanding of mental health issues rather than just telling people to “man up”. There’s other things but I can’t be bothered making a wall of text.
Not really sad, because I know where I go afterwards.