I Want a Secret Legacy

Sounds way more fun, doesn’t it?

Humans crave the feeling of being important beyond their own lifespan.  “Make a dent in the universe” and all that.  I do too.  I want to build awesome stuff that creates life-changing value for people and enhances human freedom in all its forms.  But I don’t care if my name is associated with the results.  In fact, better it not be.

The kind of legacy I’m interested in is the cultivation and inspiration of what Albert Jay Nock and the prophet Isaiah called, “The Remnant”.  I hope my kids, my customers, and my friends have more valuable lives because of what I do and create and who I choose to be every day.  I don’t care if they recognize it as the result of my actions.  I like knowing that, perhaps stealthily, I’ve left a mark that will continue to spread.

I’d rather break a thousand chains unknown than become famous only breaking my own.

All this business about “Great Men” and legacy is silly.  I don’t care much for role models, and I don’t want to be one.  I love great ideas, and don’t wish to be worshipful or spiteful of the men and women who moved them forward.  I don’t want to answer for their deeds or misdeeds.  I hope my ideas, and what I create, improve the world and set people free.  Not my personality or brand.

I don’t care much for movements, and I don’t want to represent one.  Movements are political factions where people sacrifice individual identity in exchange for meaning in us vs. them paradigms.  I don’t want to be the us or the them.  I’m the me, and if anything I do improves the world unheralded, I’ve done my work.

Statues and monuments and record books and histories are an exercise in vicarious living.  Real living isn’t vicarious.

I hope no one makes a statue of me. I’d rather be forgotten than used as a rallying point for idiots.

I want a vast legacy.  And I don’t care if no one recognizes it.