Pyramids

“Dig a hole and chuck me in it.” Say those that do not want money spent on them when they go. Use it on the living. When the time comes the families rarely heed that wish. They feel ashamed if they don’t have a decent funeral for them. So, people set about arranging a fire of sorts or a burial. Unless the fire is upon a pile of wood and set to sea, the bones are ground down by stone balls until it is fine and uniform, then tipped into an urn. Those not burnt have their stiffened corpse placed below the surface of the ground. A pauper’s spot is marked by a wooden cross. A person with an image to maintain will have a headstone commissioned. The very wealthy might elect to be placed inside a large tomb. These solid stone funeral accoutrements become home to lichen. Despite being made of seemingly stern stuff, they degrade as the years pass. The engraved letters become barely readable. Headstones gradually tilt, sinking into the earth until one day they fall over completely - with or without a kick from a bored youth. Subsumed by nature. Pyramids were designed to stay intact for eternity. Alas, people stole the nice outer stones, ransacked the treasure, and did not let the bones of their forefathers remain in situ forever.

If a burn up or a burial seems too ordinary, there are ever more ingenious ways to dispose of people. Your degraded self can be used by medical students who may select a part to chop out and immerse in vinegar. A bit of you can be put on display – used as an example of what happens when organs become diseased. If that doesn’t take your fancy, you might consider being vitrified and stored at a low temperature. For a while that is, until someone finds the cost too burdensome and defrosts you. Unless you are defrosted slowly, a smack with a hammer will shatter your hopes of being revived into millions of pieces. Imagine returning at a future date with no family alive, no friends and to a world too different to understand.

Striving to create a legacy is one of the higher-level drives that sits upon the basic ones, curiosity, selfishness, and reward. Some aspire for greatness. Some want to make sure their family does well, long into the future. If we build something, craft something perhaps we will be remembered. We could be a part of something grand that alters the way the world works. Possibly making it more efficient more sustainable, more practical, more something. We can be credited for our contribution. Our life will count for something. That is the hope. Our body may not remain intact forever but what we achieved can linger. For a while that is until someone comes up with something better, something more fashionable or something smarter.

If you manage to build a living legacy, you will be congratulated on multiple occasions and invited to parties. Adoring fans will applaud you. Getting awards and recognition whilst you are alive is a rewarding thing indeed. We have folk law and legends, names of people long gone that are cited as examples of greatness. This is the type of legacy some aim for. People dwell upon their legacy without giving enough credit to all those that made what they did possible. You may have been the one steering things, but your legacy relied upon souls that sacrificed a lot and worked hard to see your objectives through. The resulting legacy in your mind will be a long list of achievements, but that list gets remarked upon less and less as each day goes by. The list typically gets trimmed to a single item. That single thing that stands out is probably not going to be some grand achievement but a spotlight on your biggest failing.

How grandiose or humble are you feeling today? Do you have a hope that your name, your reputation, your soul will carry on for eternity. Maybe you are content with doing something so that the next generation do not have to suffer in the same way as you did. Do you feel you have done enough so that your children and grandchildren are thriving? Are you happy in the knowledge that you will be soon forgotten once you pass away. All trace of us goes soon after we take our final breath. That seems tragic. When all living relatives die too, we are not even in the memory of anyone anymore. Only historians with time to kill will leaf through the files to get a glimpse of what we did and who we were. I concede that a glimpse of someone’s character surfaces in the lyrics, melody, words, and colours of their art. So too will their inner thoughts manifest themselves in the novels and texts that they scribed. A little bit of us is laid down in the strata of humanity’s handiwork. It is just a small part of who we are though and only appreciated by a small section of those that proceed us.

Have you strived to achieve something, maybe, in the art world, the science world, the world of knowledge. Many expect great acclaim or at least a little recognition but alas, fall short. Their contribution is represented by a single flower in a meadow that spans out as far as the eyes can see. Lost, barely noticeable amongst the many. Some get a little medal of sorts and then think, now what. It is not what they thought would happen. They expected to feel wonderful and powerful and successful and be talked about and instead feel quite flat and disappointed. People console themselves with the thought that they got pleasure from the compiling and composing regardless. Despite all the promotion and effort getting it in front of people, nothing substantial comes of it. You leave it be. It gladdens your heart that it is now finished and available for people to view, if they happen upon it.

The term, worldwide acclaim, is an exaggeration. It is very, very rare to get to a point where a sizable percentage of the world population recognise you. Vast numbers pay attention to what is going on in their village and little else. Rather than being broadly recognised, people become noteworthy within closed circles, namely by other people involved in the same field, in the same business. If you double the number of famous people, you halve their individual value. Less is more. Galleries have art works placed on every wall and in every alcove. Behind the scenes lie troves of other works that are stored because there is no space to show them all. Fifty or more stored for each one on display. Some songs reach an audience of zero. Not one person takes the time to listen to them. Millions of songs never heard by anyone. Not a single person. That is aside from those that helped produce them, lest we include the poor family members who bore the brunt of being fed periodic updates on every minor detail.

Some people will always have grand ideas about their creations, believing that what they have made will last as long as a pyramid and make an equally large impression. Instead, the rise and fall of things we create follow the same pattern as the headstones in the graveyard. We forge a song or write a poem; it grabs the attention of a few people then disappears into obscurity. It has a parallel with food. Grown in the field, enjoyed, and returned there via the sewer. Transient entertainment that helps some through the day.

What should you do if you seek notoriety and be renown but are not very sporty, not exactly athletic, not terribly creative nor artistic. You have had a go at joining a rock metal band and that didn’t work out very well. You tried some comedy routines but every joke you presented fell flat. Your academic skills are lacking to say the least. You have not got rich parents, nor ones that can give you a leg up in the social scene. You are somewhat stuck. You accept that you will not be remembered in a thousand years’ time so temporary fame is a decent compromise. For that you will need some luck, some of which you can make yourself. You need to stop thinking rationally. Logical, rational ways do not inspire. Freshness, beauty, and pseudo-talent can win hearts and minds. Sentiment and emotions reign supreme in the notoriety game.

There are sports where all the top players are superstars. Yet in different sports, equally talented people are quite the opposite; few outside the sport know about them. There are accidental celebrities, ones that find themselves in the maelstrom unintentionally, but our scorn rests with those who want to disperse a message persistently to all and many, for their pearls of wisdom are far more relevant than yours and mine. They enjoy the journey to the top but when they make it, rather than joy and satisfaction they find themselves feeling rather empty.

Many strive to become a very-important-person as this allows them to jump the queues and get the most comfortable vantage points. They disregard the idea of giving each and every person equal validity. The blame for undeserved power and influence can be left at the door of those that buy into it. Being admired whilst alive can be advantageous - our time is now. Nevertheless, others will supersede us. Some of us contribute to science and the arts. We may add something to the sum of all knowledge. Others will appreciate this. There is progress. We become more capable as a species. What grates is the perversity of wanting to legitimise a sense of individual lofty distinction. Only the dumb will bow and wow. I have pressed people on occasion for an autograph. When I need them to sign a contract. I suppose the one key advantage to being well known, is the ability to be heard when you have a problem.

Fame is enticing. With fame, your words carry more weight. People take heed of what you do. People are much more curious about the famous than the not so famous. Fame sets a starting seed in our heads that we build on, willing us to find out more about the person. Where the famous is the leader, it helps to have knowledge about them.

Two difficulties: Defining what art is. Understanding why some artists gain more prominence than others. Anything can be art if someone says it is. On the second difficulty, success is not always dependant on the level of craftmanship. Talent helps, perseverance and belief helps too. A slight air of novelty which captures the imagination sets some apart. The first person to stake the claim, the initial innovator is likely to be acknowledged in the history books. If you devised a new way to spread paint on a surface, it gets noted. Nevertheless, we pay the most attention to what they did rather than care about the essence of the person behind it. For no discernible reason, someone’s profile is raised leaving others in their wake. This can annoy those that wish to be in their place. We see some take centre stage and think it is a wasted opportunity to do so much more with the attention that they are receiving. However, in most cases someone makes the news, we talk about them for a short while, then move on to the next topic of conversation.