Remembrance..?

"How would you like to be remembered?" he asked.

Asking how you want to be remembered after you are gone sounds like a funny question don't you think? 

No one knows how they are remembered nor does anyone ever experience it and yet for some reason we still ask ourselves these sorts of questions. Its a paradox really to want something after I'm dead but only be able to want anything while I am alive. The question is really more about what I want to imagine while I'm alive then isn't it? 

What I want to convince myself is my life could be for and far beyond my own life. Seeing as how I can only imagine beyond my own life, while my own life still exists. If I were to humor the question though I don't think i would want to say that- I want to be remembered as significant or influential or smart or famous or wealthy or powerful or successful. That I changed the world in some way. All of that would suggest that- i can know what any of that even means in the bigger picture and truth I don't know what it means to be influential in a world that lacks clear direction . I don't know what it means to be wealthy in a world filled with poverty. I don't know what it means to be powerful in a universe that trumps everyone and everything. And I don't know what it means to be smart or successful or to change the world as a member of a species that is restricted from understanding what anything might really mean or cause. I suppose I'm attracted to these things as much as the next person. But I cannot say with certain honesty that i believe that in the end any of these things are worth being remembered for. 

I guess the next answer would be that I want to be remembered as someone who tried. someone who tried the best to care, to help, to love, to be okay to err on the side of sympathy and compassion as best I could too be a good friend, good son, someone who lived honestly with both conviction and a willingness to adapt in what they think and believe. Someone who contributed towards something they enjoyed and believed in. Simply because they could. I'm not entirely sure how good I was at any of these things though and I know that this answer might sound equally cliche but if anything is an answer to how I want to be remembered I think its that. I think... (At least for now)

But the truth is history is coated with enumerable amounts of people who lived with these qualities and mostly none of them are remembered by anyone at all. Perhaps being remembered isn't all that important then if most people aren't remembered for whats important. Of course some peopple are remembered long after they're gone for things that do currently seem important or useful but even then if one is remembered because they ve done something that s considered useful isn't it the useful thing that is truly being remembered ? and not the person. 

There is some longing inside me to be remembered or thought of long after I m gone. I believe it probably comes from the same place that yearns to live forever and lose nothing. But nothing lives forever and everyone loses everything. 

To live for or care about being remembered is live planing your own birthday party on a day that you can not go. If I want to celebrate my life I can only do it now while I am still here. I believe everyone should still dedicate themselves to the  something or some things that they want to be remembered for. Be it a cause, a passion, a good heart or all of the above but not because its something that they ll be remembered for but because its what they want to imagine their life is for and what you imagine your life is for is what your life is for isn't it ?. whether one is remembered for it for 5 hundred thousand years or five mins after they are gone makes no difference to the person who lived for it. 

Ultimately, I have no illusions that I will last beyond the minds of a couple generations after me at best and, so what I do now what I dedicate myself to, what I experience behind the eyes of my own self must be enough. If it isn't nothing is !!!