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I spent most of my life being concerned with leaving some sort of immortalizing legacy behind. Some great work or impact on the world that would never be forgot

by pstack 15y ago

I spent most of my life being concerned with leaving some sort of immortalizing legacy behind. Some great work or impact on the world that would never be forgotten. Then I came to the conclusion that I'm a tiny life on a tiny planet in the arm of a huge galaxy in an infinite universe. That the entire planet - to the universe - is no more than a speck of sand is to the entire Earth. That on this planet, celebrities and accomplished scientists and creators will almost all be forgotten in decades; certainly a hundred years. A few will last beyond that. As the span of time grows, only a few names -- maybe Hitler, George Washington, Ramses -- will live on for hundreds of more years. Even thousands. And I'm certainly never going to amount to anything like those guys. And, when it comes down to it, all of human history has occurred on this tiny blue speck. Even the most monumental achievements and persons won't matter to anyone outside the planet and almost none will matter even to those of our own species who might continue on (assuming we aren't obliterated by some catastrophe and have spread out into the universe). So, I'm able to recognize that anything I accomplish will only have temporary meaning and that the both the most awesome and hideous legacies of all time will grow to mean nothing. So . . . why worry about my trivial actions? I'm like a bacteria on a counter waiting to be sprayed with Lysol. And no, that doesn't bum me out.

acangiano 15y ago
How has this new perspective affected the choices you make in life?
- pstack 15y ago
  The realization itself came to me when I was listening to Carl Sagan read from Pale Blue Dot. For an unseemingly long minute, it took the breath out of my body and when I finally drew it in again, the near obsessive voraciousness with which I attacked certain things (often to the detriment of my own well-being, in favor of some demented work-ethic) suddenly lifted. Just a bit at first. But enough. The most dramatic impact is that I stopped letting a project I started in 1997 (when I was 20) continue to suck me dry, like a vampire. I ran it far after I'd entirely lost interest in it. Partially because I felt it was my one meaningful contribution to anything, so far. I started it in 1997 and did every piece of work involved in it from building the servers to writing all of the backend code and front-end presentation and dealing with users (it was an auction site with a niche sub-culture twist and a screw-eBay and their fees selling point). When you invest that much time (many thousands of hours) and money and emotion into a project, you feel an obligation to maintain it. When you know there are tens of thousands of regular users (100k, at the peak) depending on it for socializing and even their income in some cases, you feel obligated. And, like with bad relationships, the familiarity and all of that invested time obligates you. For me, it got to the point where I wouldn't read my email anymore. I wouldn't post in my own forums. I wouldn't even visit my own site for months at a time. I would rely on a script to ensure the site was up and responding, because even just seeing the front page load filled me with anxiety and a degree of loathing. I ran this for twelve years. The last six of them almost entirely out of some misguided sense that I owed it to people. Or that I owed it to myself (that ceasing it would somehow waste all of my personal investment in it). One day, I decided that was it. I had to cut the cord with the project and the community and everything that it ever meant. I published a grateful thank you and goodbye (sans the details about how I had come to loath everything about it) with a notice that I would terminate it in three months. And on that date, I simply pulled the plug. I still have a workaholic mentality, where work is concerned. But at least my every waking moment outside of work isn't spent dealing with users or mediating conflicts between them or fixing bugs or feeling that I had to get around to re-writing the entire code-base all over again. Or feeling that I needed to respond to all the requests over the years for me to "sell my code" to people by actually polishing it up and making it a product (I didn't). Instead, I can read a book, watch a movie, listen to music, play a videogame, or even just take a long nap. All things I rarely ever did the previous dozen years. Further, while I spent those dozen years essentially feeding that monster with every ounce of leftover energy and not having the mental bandwidth left over to ponder future ideas and ventures, I now have some free space and time that allows me to pursue something new. I don't have anything yet. I never really was a huge "idea" guy (that project was my only shining moment of brilliance, to be honest). But, now, I can. You can find the specific segment I refer to from Pale Blue Dot, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M And you can find the text, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_Sagan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_Sa...
  - gridspy 15y ago
    My sincere congratulations on your "first failure" - I hope you continue to look back on this ending as the beginning of an exciting new journey. I too feel driven all the time. Perhaps too much. I spend a lot of time feeling guilty about not doing something. I hope that remembering what you said lightens my load too.
  - nosignal 15y ago
    Upvoted just to hear I wasn't the only one who's literally had their breath taken away by that passage. I was listening to it on audiobook while I was running, and about halfway through that passage I stopped dead and cried. My eyes are welling up even remembering that moment. I've never been a workaholic, and have always been pretty laid back - but since hearing that passage, I've had a much more sage, compassionate, patient and relaxed outlook on things. It's acted as a kind of momento mori for me - don't get too upset about things; don't get too worried about things; just make the best you can of what's going on now for yourself and those around you.
  - donofrip 15y ago
    Thank you for sharing the passage. I particularly enjoyed the imagery of the line "the earth is where we make our stand"--really dynamite stuff. The notion of an individual immortalizing legacy is a very western notion. One only needs to look at some of the great cornerstones of western literature to see this, specifically The Aeneid and The Iliad both speak of glory and historical remembrance. You don't see this as frequently in eastern culture. Ancestry is important, but ancestry is less about individual immortality as it is about continuing the family lineage--something that is much larger and more important than the individual. When my studies in philosophy shifted from a western focus and began to incorporate eastern thought, I had a very similar experience. I realized that my existence was insignificant in the grand scheme of things--something I had really known before but perhaps never fully accepted. This is a powerful thought because from this we can deconstruct our entire society and existence. Some of my favorite western literature is from the existentialists. When you begin to go down this road, however, you can come rather close to madness, as many of the existentialists did. Rules of man and nature can be questioned and dismissed as irrelevant. Life can become meaningless. Oddly enough I seek out my favorite existential texts when I too am in a dark place and feeling the solitude that a conscious and reflective life most certainly brings from time to time. I find solace in the fact that others felt this despondence and through pages and time the authors reach out with empathy. That is what art gives us--a medium through which we can bridge the solitude of existence and touch another being. That feeling reminds me that the connection between beings is what life is about (at least for me)--a moment of escape from our corporal prisons and a brief return the the continuity of the universe. This I believe is fundamental to the human experience, even if I don't understand the meaning of life. I think I tend to be more of an absurdist than anything else. Interesting for those interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism. Regardless, I believe one cannot go wrong in defaulting to this simple, folksy wisdom of one of the great thinkers of our time: Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. - Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi
dan00 15y ago
"And no, that doesn't bum me out." Yes, I think the difference is for what you're using this picture. One way would be to get depressed, to suffer from the meaningless of life. But then you have just used the picture to feed the one, who is harming you, the ego. He's the one who takes the fun, the freedom out of your life, because he tells you what you should be and do.

by pstack 15y ago

acangiano 15y ago

How has this new perspective affected the choices you make in life?

pstack 15y ago
The realization itself came to me when I was listening to Carl Sagan read from Pale Blue Dot. For an unseemingly long minute, it took the breath out of my body and when I finally drew it in again, the near obsessive voraciousness with which I attacked certain things (often to the detriment of my own well-being, in favor of some demented work-ethic) suddenly lifted. Just a bit at first. But enough. The most dramatic impact is that I stopped letting a project I started in 1997 (when I was 20) continue to suck me dry, like a vampire. I ran it far after I'd entirely lost interest in it. Partially because I felt it was my one meaningful contribution to anything, so far. I started it in 1997 and did every piece of work involved in it from building the servers to writing all of the backend code and front-end presentation and dealing with users (it was an auction site with a niche sub-culture twist and a screw-eBay and their fees selling point). When you invest that much time (many thousands of hours) and money and emotion into a project, you feel an obligation to maintain it. When you know there are tens of thousands of regular users (100k, at the peak) depending on it for socializing and even their income in some cases, you feel obligated. And, like with bad relationships, the familiarity and all of that invested time obligates you. For me, it got to the point where I wouldn't read my email anymore. I wouldn't post in my own forums. I wouldn't even visit my own site for months at a time. I would rely on a script to ensure the site was up and responding, because even just seeing the front page load filled me with anxiety and a degree of loathing. I ran this for twelve years. The last six of them almost entirely out of some misguided sense that I owed it to people. Or that I owed it to myself (that ceasing it would somehow waste all of my personal investment in it). One day, I decided that was it. I had to cut the cord with the project and the community and everything that it ever meant. I published a grateful thank you and goodbye (sans the details about how I had come to loath everything about it) with a notice that I would terminate it in three months. And on that date, I simply pulled the plug. I still have a workaholic mentality, where work is concerned. But at least my every waking moment outside of work isn't spent dealing with users or mediating conflicts between them or fixing bugs or feeling that I had to get around to re-writing the entire code-base all over again. Or feeling that I needed to respond to all the requests over the years for me to "sell my code" to people by actually polishing it up and making it a product (I didn't). Instead, I can read a book, watch a movie, listen to music, play a videogame, or even just take a long nap. All things I rarely ever did the previous dozen years. Further, while I spent those dozen years essentially feeding that monster with every ounce of leftover energy and not having the mental bandwidth left over to ponder future ideas and ventures, I now have some free space and time that allows me to pursue something new. I don't have anything yet. I never really was a huge "idea" guy (that project was my only shining moment of brilliance, to be honest). But, now, I can. You can find the specific segment I refer to from Pale Blue Dot, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p86BPM1GV8M And you can find the text, here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_Sagan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot#Reflections_by_Sa...
- gridspy 15y ago
  My sincere congratulations on your "first failure" - I hope you continue to look back on this ending as the beginning of an exciting new journey. I too feel driven all the time. Perhaps too much. I spend a lot of time feeling guilty about not doing something. I hope that remembering what you said lightens my load too.
- nosignal 15y ago
  Upvoted just to hear I wasn't the only one who's literally had their breath taken away by that passage. I was listening to it on audiobook while I was running, and about halfway through that passage I stopped dead and cried. My eyes are welling up even remembering that moment. I've never been a workaholic, and have always been pretty laid back - but since hearing that passage, I've had a much more sage, compassionate, patient and relaxed outlook on things. It's acted as a kind of momento mori for me - don't get too upset about things; don't get too worried about things; just make the best you can of what's going on now for yourself and those around you.
- donofrip 15y ago
  Thank you for sharing the passage. I particularly enjoyed the imagery of the line "the earth is where we make our stand"--really dynamite stuff. The notion of an individual immortalizing legacy is a very western notion. One only needs to look at some of the great cornerstones of western literature to see this, specifically The Aeneid and The Iliad both speak of glory and historical remembrance. You don't see this as frequently in eastern culture. Ancestry is important, but ancestry is less about individual immortality as it is about continuing the family lineage--something that is much larger and more important than the individual. When my studies in philosophy shifted from a western focus and began to incorporate eastern thought, I had a very similar experience. I realized that my existence was insignificant in the grand scheme of things--something I had really known before but perhaps never fully accepted. This is a powerful thought because from this we can deconstruct our entire society and existence. Some of my favorite western literature is from the existentialists. When you begin to go down this road, however, you can come rather close to madness, as many of the existentialists did. Rules of man and nature can be questioned and dismissed as irrelevant. Life can become meaningless. Oddly enough I seek out my favorite existential texts when I too am in a dark place and feeling the solitude that a conscious and reflective life most certainly brings from time to time. I find solace in the fact that others felt this despondence and through pages and time the authors reach out with empathy. That is what art gives us--a medium through which we can bridge the solitude of existence and touch another being. That feeling reminds me that the connection between beings is what life is about (at least for me)--a moment of escape from our corporal prisons and a brief return the the continuity of the universe. This I believe is fundamental to the human experience, even if I don't understand the meaning of life. I think I tend to be more of an absurdist than anything else. Interesting for those interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absurdism. Regardless, I believe one cannot go wrong in defaulting to this simple, folksy wisdom of one of the great thinkers of our time: Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. - Mohandas Karamchand Ghandi

dan00 15y ago

"And no, that doesn't bum me out." Yes, I think the difference is for what you're using this picture. One way would be to get depressed, to suffer from the meaningless of life. But then you have just used the picture to feed the one, who is harming you, the ego. He's the one who takes the fun, the freedom out of your life, because he tells you what you should be and do.