Legacies
What is a legacy? It is what has been left to us, and what we leave to others. It can be anything we leave behind. It is also the last imprint of our lives on those near and far from us. A friend of mine once said that he hopes he leaves a positive legacy, but that he also doesn’t want empty accolades. He wants to be remembered for who he was, not what he wasn’t. To him, honoring his memory is showing him for his good AND bad traits. His idea of a legacy is the importance of honesty and truth. That night I argued with him over my legacy. I didn’t care what I left behind. Jaded and bitter to the core over a life that has been far from kind in many ways, I was blinded to the importance and significance of my legacy. I argued that my life, and what I leave behind, was no more important than feces… foul-smelling, insignificant, destined to dry and decay in the heat of the sun. But, recently, I have come to realize the importance of my legacy. And, I also see the dangers of selfish legacies.
There are two kinds of legacies I’d like to address here. The first one is a legacy of character. It is a legacy that shows honesty, integrity, loyalty, honor, empathy, compassion, justice, humanity. It is a legacy that provides for the future by way of mistakes of the past. This legacy embraces courage to know, understand, and reflect. This legacy cares for all human beings, regardless of political or religious ideology. This legacy knows nothing of race, color, or creed. It is devoid of bigotry, hate, and malice. It is a legacy that does not thrive on power, money, or fame, nor is it the result of such. It is pure in form, cultivated by altruistic evolution and nurtured through careful consideration. It is a legacy of selflessness.
The second kind of legacy is a legacy of ego. It is a legacy that shows greed, power, fame, money, ownership, control, deception, superiority, self-righteousness. It is a legacy that provides nothing other than self-gratification at others expense, even at their peril. It is self-absorbed, trapped within the confines of arrogance, and weak without empathy or compassion. It is a legacy that says “Here I am! I have so much! Look at me! I’m powerful, feared, reviled, ruthless!” It is a legacy that treats humanity as a commodity to be bought and sold for whatever profit it can produce. It is a legacy of power for power’s sake. It thrives on ideological and religious bigotry. Never the worry for conflict or uncivil discourse where a profit can be made. It is a legacy of selfishness.
I look around me, at what few friends I have, and see legacies of character. I look at others and see legacies of ego. Unfortunately, most of those legacies of ego are firmly entrenched in religion, politics, and entertainment, the masters of human damning legacies. The greatest offender of the three is religion. Ego is what drives religion. It is driven by the ego of a myth. And religion’s legacies have historically been the most damning of all. Religion has infected the masses with the most cruel, inhumane, vile, selfish and self-righteous diseases known to mankind. It’s bigotry and hate driven ego, its insatiable desire to control all things human , for absolute power, money and fame, knows no bounds. It is these things that have made this legacy the greatest weapon of mass destruction ever known to history.
Religion is a master of deception, illusion, and misdirection, and it thrives in confusion, lies and deceit. It will kill in the name of a myth. It will lie, cheat and steal to further its agenda, and will deny human rights to anyone who does not accept its dogma. It preys upon the downtrodden, the sick, the weak. It relishes the confiscation of a child’s mind and the forced drafting of children into its religious army, to be used as pawns in a war against science, reason and logic. For knowledge is its enemy, and knowledge is only good when it doesn’t threaten to reveal truth.
Followers of religion pass on these legacies to the world. They refuse to be restrained. These legacies of ego claim knowledge of the supernatural in the face of proven natural law. They claim superior morality in the face of their own ethical starvation. They claim self-righteousness in the face of their own hypocrisy. The web that has been woven by religion’s legacies is not of a single predator. There are threads from another. In fact, it is both a dysfunctional and functional relationship that hangs on because their legacies are twins.
Politics , the seat of power, the end all be all conquerer of the human spirit, leaves little in the way of legacies of ego to the imagination. Our Founding Fathers knew the dangers of legacies of ego. They had already witnessed it in their lifetime with King George. They were keenly aware. In their struggle for humanity, their legacies were not too far from ego, but far enough away, and closer to legacies of character to leave behind the greatest legacy of all. The Constitution of the United States of America. Our Founding Fathers were far from perfect. Indeed, they were no less human than anyone who came before them, or after. But, they understood the importance of leaving legacies that honored humanity and liberty.
So… What will your legacy be? What will the final chapter of your life look like? What will you leave behind? How will it speak to future generations? Will it leave a taste for bigotry and hatred, self-righteousness and ego… or will it leave a taste for honesty, integrity, loyalty, honor, empathy, compassion, justice and humanity? You decide. But, don’t wait until it’s too late. While you may think you’re moving on to another life…
Are you willing to bank your children’s future on your guess and a legacy of ego? Or a reasoned, logical, scientific approach and a legacy of character?
December 13, 2009 at 9:35 am
Well written as always, RJ!
Definitely one reason I strive to hang on to my character. I cannot be other than what I am and I revere the truth and am by nature honest. Still, when I think of what I will leave behind for my child and grandchild, I hope the one thing I can leave them is integrity and character grounded in reality. There is no firmer ground on which one can base their life.
December 13, 2009 at 11:13 pm
Reminds me of the movie, Death Becomes Her, where (contains spoilers) the two vain actresses obtain immortality for their own petty egos while their make-up artist (I think he was one) who patched them up (after leaving them) built a new more meaningful life and gained eternal youth (through his beloved children) and immortality (through the friends and family fond memories).