Ask Lemmy

I have no need to be remembered by anyone. Memories and legacies are fake human constructs that we’ve made up. We live approx 60ish years and then die. Only kids and or some relatives/spouses will remember you for another few decades before they die too and you’re completely forgotten.

To hang onto the idea that you must leave a legacy behind and be remembered by other people just adds unnecessary stress to one’s life. Not a single person cares about anyone except for themselves (save for some people who may care in some manner about their significant others, kids, maybe a best friend).

Right now, knowing my public execution won't be cause for national celebration is a weirdly comforting bit of knowledge.

"I don't want to be remembered, I want to live" (paraphrased)

-CGP Grey

i grew up in a BIG mormon family.

a decade or so ago, a group of 20-ish cousins and i were sitting round the campfire at the reunion. they all discussed among themselves and decided that i am the original black-sheep of the family and they thanked me for being a strong role model for their own journey out of the truly awful mormon religion.

i am very proud of that.

I hope friends will occasionally remember having fun with me and smile.

Like this:

Is it weird that i dont want to be remembered? I just want to fade into nothingness. None of it matters anyway

I don't need people to remember me, personally by name or what I looked like, but I would be happy if others would be positively affected by whatever I manage to accomplish in this life.

The one after Luigi.

Actually I really like the idea that I will die and join the legions of humans who lived interesting lives and disappeared in the sands of time.

I want to be remembered as that guy that once threw his socks in the hamper and BOTH went in.

I honestly think obscurity wouldn't be that bad, that would be a victory

Not afraid of death, not afraid of being forgotten, not afraid of some spiritual afterlife or lack thereof.

I spent a long time religious with such a heavy focus on what happens after death, being free of that burden makes it possible to live in the only moment we can ever control in all of eternity, now.

I don't.

Someone who worked an honest life. Not someone who took advantage of others directly or indirectly (working for a scummy company). I observed many places abusing uninformed customers for work. It was sickening seeing these guys tack on random shit to the bill since they knew they could trick the customer.

For the women reading, you are often targeted and scammed this way. Learn about what you are getting fixed so you know if the bill is bullshit. Ive seen places press a couple buttons on a computer and charge for replacing the OS, updating drivers and other nonsense.

Contractors and service places (repair and automotive shops) are prime examples. I know good contractors who don't like being watched, but you as the paying customer deserve and have the right to watch. Once a plumber stole 600$ from my grandpa's wallet, money he was going to give to his grandkids. I worked for an honest computer shop I was proud of, but it was constantly on the verge. It was extremely depressing.

Now after a career change (woodworking) I hope to provide decent products for an honest price. Materials and equipment + labour (with an hourly rate of a livable wage).

Don't remember me, when I die let me just be gone.

I have no great desire to be remembered. It is neither here nor there from my point of view. As to how people are likely to remember me, 'quiet' and 'intelligent' are two words that crop up a lot from people who I interact with casually or occasionally. Those who know be better would probably focus on my environmental and conservation work etc.

Related to that, due to the role that I played in stopping an area being sold for development and instead becoming designated as a nature reserve on one occasion, there is a meadow that is casually called after me by some people that I worked with. I suppose that I would be happy to be remembered as a meadow.

"He was just starting to get pretty okay at playing the Appalachian dulcimer."

Someone who really was helpful and friendly and supportive.

vaguely

I hope I am one day a sort of Patronus Charm that my kids can utilize to ward off crippling thoughts.

I agree. I hope that one day I will be remembered as a decent person by everyone who has gotten to know me a little. If that is the case, I think I will have lived my life well.

“Drowned in the Caspian Sea.”

I want to be remembered for my so-far meager and obscure contributions to the field of mathematics.

Most likely I'll be remembered as intelligent, kind and sarcastic by a few friends.

Like Luigi 😉

I doubt I will be remembered at all.

“You want my treasure? You can have it! I left everything I gathered together in one place. Now you just have to find it.”

I want my funeral to be a roast but my fiancee asked me not to.

Doesn't that depend on the person? I've interacted with many people in different ways over the years, and if I made an impact on them it's probably not something that a couple of words would meaningfully encompass.

To put it differently, if I think about people who have passed away or people who used to live close to me but now live far away so we're no longer in contact, the people where I think they changed my life or how I think or feel, talking about them always involves telling a story, or maybe two or three. And that's how it should be, right?

The same as I live - I just hope people say about me that I am a good guy who is nice to people. I would like to be remembered as a person who gives more than he takes.

i go out of my way to not be

I don't know. I really want people to like me. I wouldn't describe myself as attention starved, but I get upset pretty easily when I learn people don't like me. I try to be a good friend. I try to be fun. I try to be the life of the party and a social butterfly but not overstay my welcome in the limelight.

I would rather be forgotten in short order without a legacy or anything that lasts longer than those I've interacted with in person. For those that know me, hopefully they mostly remember the good times.

Being remembered implies memory carried through time and space. Being remembered implies future humans remembering.

The grand scheme of the cosmos makes it questionable. There'll be no human being millions of years from now, at least not the humanity that we know of. If humans lasted for the next thousand years, it'll certainly be a cosmic miracle, because the scientific tendency is a mass extinction event for the foreseeable future (due to factors such as climate change).

We don't need to try and imagine a foreseeable future. We can look at the past and question ourselves whether it's possible or not for a person to actually be remembered. Do we know and remember the name of that first person to ever write within language rules, possibly a Sumerian person? Do we know and remember their name, their life, how they looked like, what they ate? What about the first person to ever lit a fire, possibly a hominid? What about the first person to make something that resembled a wheel?

Time's cruel. I mean, there's no cruelty as in a human sense, it's simply a great, ineffable cosmic indifference towards the "order out of chaos" that we call "living beings". Even when there are memory carriers, people who remember other people, the memories and thoughts they carry will fade into the oblivion of the entropy. It's how cosmos functions. Order came from the primordial chaos, and to the primordial chaos it must return.

So, how do I want to be remembered? Do I ever want to be? Even if I did want to be remembered, it wouldn't matter, because all matter and energy will be forgotten amongst the cosmic soup of chaos rearranged by an unstoppable entropy.