Even the goal of doing something that will outlive you is an arbitrary bar: you are "settling" for mere centuries. Making something that really lasts is hard.

Even the goal of doing something that will outlive you is an arbitrary bar: you are "settling" for mere centuries. Making something that really lasts is hard. My favorite example is the Clock of the Long Now, a timepiece designed to operate for the next 10,000 years: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clock_of_the_Long_Now