Someday, you will only be a memory to some people. Have you ever thought about how you will be remembered?
In 1888, a wealthy businessman woke up one day to read his obituary on a French newspaper. The words were, "Le marchand de la mort est mort" which means, "The merchant of death is dead". The papers went on to say that the man who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday. He, of course, was still very much alive at the time. This came as a wake up call to the man whose name is tagged to some of the most amazing yet horrible armament inventions of our time. Upon his death, 18 years later after reading his obituary, his family and friends were surprised to find out what he has written on his will. The man allocated 94% of his total assets to the formation of what is now regarded as one of the most respected foundations in the world. The man is Dr. Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the man behind the Nobel Peace Prize and the inventor of the dynamite.
Legacy, how one will be remembered, can change a man. On our deathbeds, wealth, power, influence, possessions - none of these matter. Although he would not be able to read it, what matters to a dying man are the words that will be written in his obituary and on his tombstone. Show me an obituary that says, "he was found dead in his Ferrari parked beside his mansion in his 250 acre estate" and I will show you a poor man. Find an epitaph that reads, "Here lies a man who lived a full life. He is survived by his poker mates, golf buddies and his social wingman" and you have found a lonely man. Dr. Nobel surely did not want the legacy of being remembered as the Grim Reaper. He used his wealth, power, influence and possessions to change the legacy that he will leave behind. The rest, as they say, is history.
As the famous Latin saying goes, "Quod in omni vita facimus in aeternum resonat" - what we do in life echoes in eternity. It says WHAT WE DO and not WHAT WE HAVE. The material things we leave when we go to the after life are nothing but monuments to remember us by. Much like real monuments, they will eventually be eroded by time.
We live in a society so hooked up in assigning sentimental value to things associated to precious moments -- a society that sometimes forget to live in the very moment it tries to capture. Case in point, we like taking photographs of precious life events so we have something to look back to 10 years from now. Every second of the moment captured in stills. Then we look at those photographs 10 years after and we realize we were so busy capturing the moment and it is as if we were not there. Sometimes we even only get remembered as the person who took the photograph, that is if the photograph is ever seen again. Fact of the matter is, most of these photographs end up in an unlabeled box up in the attic, or stuck in a memory card lying around with other tiny electronics and we don't even know if it still works or if it has anything in it. Memories turned to monuments forgotten.
What is it with materials things that we tend to give it more value as a vessel of precious memories? The answer is simple. Our brains are programmed to believe that only those we can see, touch, taste, hear and smell are the only things that are real. So logic dictates that it only makes sense to put our trust in "REAL" things to hold our precious memories. We give what science sees as a "subjective, conscious experience" (i.e. emotion) a physical form so that it can become "real" in the form that we are familiar with. And so love becomes synonymous to ring, stability becomes precious possessions, happiness becomes a favorite hangout place, and so on and so forth.
Materialistic as it may seem, this is how our initial memory engraving process go. Ever wondered why you find it is so difficult to throw that old stroller of your first-born? Or perhaps why it is so difficult to throw an old braided bracelet given by our very first best friend? Yep, they have been memory-engraved - items of high sentimental value. Every experience, every memory, every emotion is memorialized into tangible things that our physical senses can easily relate to.
This is how people remember until your precious ring is stolen, or your assets are taken away by the bank, or your happy place is torn down. Once the physical vessels holding our precious memories are taken away, only then we realize that the memories we hold dear are the people themselves. It is not the ring, but the person that made us feel loved. It is not the precious possessions, but the person that provided us strength in our moments of weakness. It is not the favorite hangout place, but the person we are with that made the hangout place our happy place. The very same person who can turn the ring from a symbol of love to a symbol of pain when he/she leaves. The very same person who can make you feel neglected despite all the earthly possessions he/she brings, making all the possessions a symbol of insecurity. It is also the very same person who can disrespect you in what you have come to know as your happy place, turning it into a dreaded sinkhole that you would not even want to step foot into. Memories are people.
We are all someone's memory, a past, a present or a future. How you will be remembered when your time is over all depends on how you make people feel while you are here. Dr. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of the dynamite, once known as the bringer of death was remembered as a bringer of peace and hope. He is a real-life testament of the power we all have to impact change, if we decide to do so, so that we can be remembered exactly how we want to be remembered no matter how the society sees us and how we see ourselves right at this very moment. The only real question here is how do you want to be remembered?
Me? If I end up being remembered at all, I want to be remembered as a tiny speck of dust in the universe. A tiny speck of dust that touched the lives of those it met along the way as it roamed the earth aimlessly. In the end, when the curtains fall, I can live with "Here lies the dust that made the universe complete".
And if I get lucky, I would not mind at all being remembered as the dust in a Ferrari. Brrroom!!! Brrrooom!!!
In 1888, a wealthy businessman woke up one day to read his obituary on a French newspaper. The words were, "Le marchand de la mort est mort" which means, "The merchant of death is dead". The papers went on to say that the man who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday. He, of course, was still very much alive at the time. This came as a wake up call to the man whose name is tagged to some of the most amazing yet horrible armament inventions of our time. Upon his death, 18 years later after reading his obituary, his family and friends were surprised to find out what he has written on his will. The man allocated 94% of his total assets to the formation of what is now regarded as one of the most respected foundations in the world. The man is Dr. Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the man behind the Nobel Peace Prize and the inventor of the dynamite.
Legacy, how one will be remembered, can change a man. On our deathbeds, wealth, power, influence, possessions - none of these matter. Although he would not be able to read it, what matters to a dying man are the words that will be written in his obituary and on his tombstone. Show me an obituary that says, "he was found dead in his Ferrari parked beside his mansion in his 250 acre estate" and I will show you a poor man. Find an epitaph that reads, "Here lies a man who lived a full life. He is survived by his poker mates, golf buddies and his social wingman" and you have found a lonely man. Dr. Nobel surely did not want the legacy of being remembered as the Grim Reaper. He used his wealth, power, influence and possessions to change the legacy that he will leave behind. The rest, as they say, is history.
As the famous Latin saying goes, "Quod in omni vita facimus in aeternum resonat" - what we do in life echoes in eternity. It says WHAT WE DO and not WHAT WE HAVE. The material things we leave when we go to the after life are nothing but monuments to remember us by. Much like real monuments, they will eventually be eroded by time.
We live in a society so hooked up in assigning sentimental value to things associated to precious moments -- a society that sometimes forget to live in the very moment it tries to capture. Case in point, we like taking photographs of precious life events so we have something to look back to 10 years from now. Every second of the moment captured in stills. Then we look at those photographs 10 years after and we realize we were so busy capturing the moment and it is as if we were not there. Sometimes we even only get remembered as the person who took the photograph, that is if the photograph is ever seen again. Fact of the matter is, most of these photographs end up in an unlabeled box up in the attic, or stuck in a memory card lying around with other tiny electronics and we don't even know if it still works or if it has anything in it. Memories turned to monuments forgotten.
What is it with materials things that we tend to give it more value as a vessel of precious memories? The answer is simple. Our brains are programmed to believe that only those we can see, touch, taste, hear and smell are the only things that are real. So logic dictates that it only makes sense to put our trust in "REAL" things to hold our precious memories. We give what science sees as a "subjective, conscious experience" (i.e. emotion) a physical form so that it can become "real" in the form that we are familiar with. And so love becomes synonymous to ring, stability becomes precious possessions, happiness becomes a favorite hangout place, and so on and so forth.
Materialistic as it may seem, this is how our initial memory engraving process go. Ever wondered why you find it is so difficult to throw that old stroller of your first-born? Or perhaps why it is so difficult to throw an old braided bracelet given by our very first best friend? Yep, they have been memory-engraved - items of high sentimental value. Every experience, every memory, every emotion is memorialized into tangible things that our physical senses can easily relate to.
This is how people remember until your precious ring is stolen, or your assets are taken away by the bank, or your happy place is torn down. Once the physical vessels holding our precious memories are taken away, only then we realize that the memories we hold dear are the people themselves. It is not the ring, but the person that made us feel loved. It is not the precious possessions, but the person that provided us strength in our moments of weakness. It is not the favorite hangout place, but the person we are with that made the hangout place our happy place. The very same person who can turn the ring from a symbol of love to a symbol of pain when he/she leaves. The very same person who can make you feel neglected despite all the earthly possessions he/she brings, making all the possessions a symbol of insecurity. It is also the very same person who can disrespect you in what you have come to know as your happy place, turning it into a dreaded sinkhole that you would not even want to step foot into. Memories are people.
We are all someone's memory, a past, a present or a future. How you will be remembered when your time is over all depends on how you make people feel while you are here. Dr. Alfred Nobel, the inventor of the dynamite, once known as the bringer of death was remembered as a bringer of peace and hope. He is a real-life testament of the power we all have to impact change, if we decide to do so, so that we can be remembered exactly how we want to be remembered no matter how the society sees us and how we see ourselves right at this very moment. The only real question here is how do you want to be remembered?
Me? If I end up being remembered at all, I want to be remembered as a tiny speck of dust in the universe. A tiny speck of dust that touched the lives of those it met along the way as it roamed the earth aimlessly. In the end, when the curtains fall, I can live with "Here lies the dust that made the universe complete".
And if I get lucky, I would not mind at all being remembered as the dust in a Ferrari. Brrroom!!! Brrrooom!!!
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