Persistence

  “The idea of being forgotten is terrifying. I fear not just that I, personally, will be forgotten but that we are all doomed to being forgotten; that the sum of life is ultimately nothing; that we experience joy and disappointment and aches and delights and loss, make our little mark on the world, and then we vanish, and the mark is erased, and it is as if we never existed. If you gaze into that bleakness even for a moment, the sum of life becomes null and void, because if nothing lasts nothing matters. Everything we experience unfolds without a pattern, and life is just a baffling occurrence, a scattering of notes with no melody. But if something you learn or observe or imagine can be set down and saved, and if you can see your life reflected in previous lives, and can imagine it reflected in subsequent ones, you can begin to discover order and harmony. You know that you are a part of a larger story that has shape and purpose—a tangible, familiar past and a constantly refreshed future. We are all whispering in a tin can on a string, but we are heard, so we whisper the message into the next tin can and the next string. Writing a book is an act of sheer defiance. It is a declaration that you believe in the persistence of memory.”

― Susan Orlean

I ran across this passage from Susan Orlean, someone I'm not familiar with at all. I naturally did an internet search and read about her accomplishments. A staff writer for several prestigious magazines and an author of several books. I expect if I were more well-read I would have been aware of her. But like the majority of authors she hasn't achieved "fame" however you wish to define that. I haven't read a single JK Rowling book but know who she is and what she has written, at least a partial list. That's fame to me. The subject of her books, from the synopsis I did read, didn't interest me to pursue them further. I don't know the origin of the passage I posted, whether from a book, a magazine article or a simple response to an interview. That's not important to me, however. I read that passage and was struck by the honesty of those words. 

 I believe she is correct although I would have said it different. "The idea of being forgotten is terrifying." I'm not afraid of being forgotten but a sense of overwhelming sadness comes over me when I think about that happening. She describes it perfectly when she says being erased. Yes, that' it. I think we all want to believe we have left something behind, something memorable. That's what memorials are all about aren't they. I'm not saying I want a memorial erected in my memory but perhaps my picture on the wall or repeating a simple passage I have written. Something, anything to remind others that I was here.

 This time of year always inspires those thoughts in me. Perhaps it is because the end of another year is fast approaching. It's an end, albeit an artificial one created by man to mark the passage of time. Time a concept not understood by mortals at all for time itself is immortal. For Christians it is a time for birth, a new year, a new beginning, a promise made. I'm not alone in that as that is what Auld Lang Syne is also about. Auld Lang Syne means Old Long Since, or as we might phrase it, days gone by. In the song we are urged to drink our pints and remember those old days, old folks, and days long gone. Nothing like drinking alcohol and reminiscing about old friends and family members no longer with us. That'll cheer you up! It does speak to the frailty of life. 

 Is success in life measured by how long you are remembered? Now that is a terrifying thought. For that reason, to have to reject that notion. I think Susan Orlean rejected that idea as well by her subsequent remarks. We are all a part of something much larger, more complex and meaningful than we can imagine. The sum of the whole is the one. That's the promise of life and death. It's the promise of eternity. Names change but actions do not. The past does not remain in the past but continues into the future. It is carried there by each of us, in our own way and in our own time. "The persistence of memory."