Hmm, really interesting food for thought. I don't know if I agree with this. There are many things of beauty left behind by those who have gone before, and I'm not sure I'd want to live in a world without those things. Without Starry Night or the Alhambra or Neuschwanstein or the Pyramids or Beethoven or the Beatles or Shakespeare.
I think if we pass through this world and we touch no one, affect no one, that we didn't leave the world at least a tiny bit better for our having been here, then our lives were truly a waste.
That's different than vanity of course, from seeking immortality. Names fade after a while, so I think seeking that sort of thing is fleeting. And of course there are artists and writers who were only famous after they were gone like Van Gogh or Emily Dickensen. That either didn't seek fame or didn't realize it.
I do agree that we fear unimportance, but maybe that's what drives us to create amazing things that last far longer than our names do. Most people probably couldn't name the King who built those great German castles, so the thing itself I think lives on longer than the name of the person that created it.
(Just a minor, geeky point, stars aren't named after their discoverers - the IAU has specific naming conventions: http://www.iau.org/public/naming/ -- the earliest such was naming them after the constellation they're in, plus a Greek letter. And you can't really buy star names in any real sense: http://www.iau.org/public/buying_star_names/ ) ;-)
Hope you don't mind me chiming in with my own thoughts here. :-)
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2010-05-13 12:41 pm (UTC)I think if we pass through this world and we touch no one, affect no one, that we didn't leave the world at least a tiny bit better for our having been here, then our lives were truly a waste.
That's different than vanity of course, from seeking immortality. Names fade after a while, so I think seeking that sort of thing is fleeting. And of course there are artists and writers who were only famous after they were gone like Van Gogh or Emily Dickensen. That either didn't seek fame or didn't realize it.
I do agree that we fear unimportance, but maybe that's what drives us to create amazing things that last far longer than our names do. Most people probably couldn't name the King who built those great German castles, so the thing itself I think lives on longer than the name of the person that created it.
(Just a minor, geeky point, stars aren't named after their discoverers - the IAU has specific naming conventions: http://www.iau.org/public/naming/ -- the earliest such was naming them after the constellation they're in, plus a Greek letter. And you can't really buy star names in any real sense: http://www.iau.org/public/buying_star_names/ ) ;-)
Hope you don't mind me chiming in with my own thoughts here. :-)