Peter Cooper

Forget legacy: Just have fun, feel good, and keep your head above water

It’s been over six months now since I sold Feed Digest. For the first three months I pretty much did nothing. Then we went on the “holiday of a lifetime” for two weeks. Then I spent the next three months doing nothing. “Nothing” is not literal, of course. I’ve been working hard on Ruby Inside, doing the odd bit of client work, and have attempted a number of fresh projects (even launching one or two.)

With these six months of near leisure, however, I have discovered a few things about myself:

• I’m not a natural entrepreneur; if I don’t want / need it, it doesn’t tend to get done.
• I’m not good at enjoying leisure time; other than the holiday, it hasn’t felt very leisurely.
• I can’t figure out what my motivations, goals, or ambitions are.
• I love falling into good, old existential crises.

The astute reader will notice an overbearing presence of negativity here. I’d come up with a clever way to twist these round to positive, but I’m not one to tinker with the telling.

Only the existential crises - almost a cliché in thinking amongst the overprivileged, underutilized 20-something demographic - is framed in a somewhat positive way, but this is mere sarcasm. I’ve been thinking about the concept of “legacy” a lot, and the supposed instinct to “make a mark” whether you have any actual goals or not. This, coupled with the urge to work out just what life is all about, it is said, is the drive that leads scientists to discover, journalists to rove, and artists to paint.

My conclusion: Attempting to enforce a legacy is a fruitless (and often painful or costly) endeavor. Yes, the attempts of those Lords, Ladies and other wealthy types who had mausoleums built, statues erected, and paintings formulated in their honor, merely as an attempt to prolong their influence on the world, were futile.

The legacy angle fails to work on a personal level in most scientific or artistic circles unless you fall into the top brackets (that are typically academic or revolutionary) of those fields. In the computing field, I suspect no-one will be familiar with Alan Cox or Brad Fitzpatrick (as great they are) in 50 years’ time, while Linus Torvalds and Donald Knuth will continue to be revered. Professional or scientific legacy, therefore, is not a realistic achievement for most, and achievement in these fields should be sought for more practical, “in the now” reasons, such as the joy of fame, money, or a selfless belief you’re improving the situation for those to come.

Due to the levels of attainment required for professional, societal or artistic legacy, most people settle for short-term or familial legacy, the satisfaction of which is in having (or adopting, or caring for) children, having those children know you, having their children know you, and, rarely, having the generation after that know you. It rarely goes any further. My own paternal great-grandfather is merely a name and a profession to me (Sidney - bus driver) and I couldn’t recall a single other fact than that. His DNA, a form of biological legacy, lives on in me and hundreds of cousins and other distant family, but he is, effectively, totally dead in both memory and spirit.

These considerations have boiled down to several personal conclusions for me regarding the concept of “legacy” and how it relates to life.

Firstly, that unless you propose to be infamous (e.g. Hitler - who is still inspiring the sick and twisted) or truly world-class in whatever you do, forget about the fact that you’ll be remembered in any shape or form beyond the lifetimes of your loved ones or direct descendants.

Secondly, considering the first point, defining your goals or activities purely with the ambition to leave a legacy is a waste of time.

Third, it is necessary to have some sort of ethical or philosophical (potentially religious) system in place to define and direct your goals once you realize the concept of legacy is mostly a fraud. If you don’t have any such system, you encounter an existential crisis. The reason devoutly religious people don’t tend to have existential crises is because religions often “put off” the idea of having to think about your meaning in the world until after you’re already dead. In this way, religion acts as a form of trickery for the mind, and provides a way for people to cope with, or put off thinking about, their place in the world.

Lastly, try to live for the day or in the present. This is a cliché and raises images of going hang-gliding, visiting Antarctica, and performing all sorts of “if you were going to die tomorrow” activities. In my mind, however, I’m starting to think of “living for the day” as really meaning “do stuff that’s fun, makes you feel good, and keeps your head above water.” I might not have it all figured out yet in that statement, but if I get any further, I’ll be posting about it.

Another post, another really interesting point raised. Like you, I suffer the existential questions a lot, but legacy is never something I directly considered. I suppose it accounts for that niggling feeling of ‘get noticed’ that has been lingering. I had previously put it down to a cultural thing we have, the heavily extrinsic value system where we judge ourselves by our approval from others - the seeking of fame, status and respect, even if we’re not doing it directly (e.g. what motivations do we have for blogging? for releasing products?). My umbrage with this is consequences of everyone doing it. We put up a front - a crafted image - of ourselves that distances the real us from those around us, we rat race & compete causing us to be less open and more jealous of those around us, we all devote excess time working to win, reducing the time we have to actually live, when ultimately it is futile given that by definition, only a very small % can be winners. There was a great study the BBC reported on that everyone is getting richer - better houses, better cars - but are less happy because everyone else is also getting more - i.e. they’re just keeping up with the Joneses, not getting ahead. The root of this, of course, is a value system they place on material success and status, which has to come at the expense of others. To go off at a complete tangent, the only people who are really benefiting from the masses rat racing (and ultimately materially improving, but relative to each other remaining the same) are the existing rich who are the ones to ultimatley profit from all this productivity.

That was a bit of rant! I should conclude and say my resolution was similar to yours - to savour more intrinsic values, where the work itself is the reward, and directly benefiting those around you (professionally or socially) - i.e. those who you influence and who influence you - family, friends, colleagues & peers.

Andy: Can’t think of an elaborate response, but I did read all of it and.. spot on!