This thread occurred to me as I was looking at a place on Google Earth where I spent some of my life nearly 50 years ago.

During my career as an engineer, I've been involved in many projects of a size that can be easily seen on Google Earth.

This thought first occurred to me on a drive that took me through Appalachia, Virginia that was the site of a coal preparation plant for Westmoreland Coal where I had my first field assignment as a rookie engineer during the start-up of that plant.

My wife and I drove through Appalachia about 20 years ago, after dropping our youngest son off at college in Georgia, and I was taken aback to see the plant I'd help start up in a derelict conditions. We made that trip again a few years ago and found the plant completely demolished to the ground.

That has prompted me over recent years to try to see what has become of other projects I was involved in. Some are still there; some are gone; some are hard to tell because they aren't easy to distinguish in aerial photography.

It's caused me to ponder what we really accomplish and leave behind us after we go. The Panama Canal, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Eiffel Tower are examples of things that have outlived their creators. The pyramids of Egypt, Macchu Picu in Peru, or the Great Wall in China have long outlived those who saw them built, but most of the wonders of the ancient world are long vanished.

All this put me in mind of the poem Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Maybe I'm a bit maudlin or contemplative today because of the pandemic. But enough of my philosophizing - here's the question. What do you think you might be remembered for?

Big Al

Shelley's work remains. Intellectual accomplishments often outlast physical constructions.

Love your post. So cool. What will last?

I looked through my QuickBooks a while back. I’ve had some 400 people hit my payroll over the last 30 years. I paid every one of them exactly what they were owed. Hell, I paid a bunch of them to produce exactly nothing so I could be shed of them.

But there were the few. Trained ‘em from scratch. Yelled at ‘em. Got ‘em out bed. Dragged em out of bars. Picked them up at home and. took them to work when they lost their drivers licenses . These guys are my legacy. They’re not crafting sacred sculpture, but I fed a lot of their kids. Still do.

These guys never got to go to elite private schools. Most guys don’t, and if I show a certain disinterest in that whole scene you’ll have to make allowances. My version of America looks a bit different.

What lasts? I been responsible for starting some 8 electrical contracting companies in the OC over the last 30 years. Most are more successful than I ever was and I’m cool with that. Not sure it will rate recognition in a thousand years but I’m good with it.

May I brag? My boys contributed 1000 times more to society than any Kardashian. They do useful things for a proper wage. They show up for work clean and shower when they get home . They wear boots to work and change to soft Italian moccasins when they get home. Or flip flops - whatever.

I fed a lot of kids. Put that on my tombstone.

It's a bit daunting to think about a personal impact after I've read Steve's post. He's made the world a better place for a lot of people who are outside of his own family circle in some very concrete ways.

My children are a legacy that makes me proud. They're kind people who are raising kind people. Kindness radiates into the world in ways that aren't measurable. I try to exhibit kindness myself, yet I was surprised when several of my students went out of their way to mention kindness in my student evaluations.

I feel like my teaching has less immediate impact than some in terms of helping students get ahead economically. It's not like I'm teaching engineering and can hope that my students walk right into a high-paying job. I'm not technically in a liberal arts field, but my students get the kind of preparation for work that liberal arts students get. My goal is for them to leave with solid communication skills, an expanded view of the world that comes from reading widely, and critical thinking abilities that come from a lot of class discussion that involves a lot of questions. If they do learn some of those things from me, they're going to be living in this world a lot longer than me, so that is a legacy.

My books will be out there for some undetermined period of time. The physical books will be in libraries until they wear out and people stop asking for them to be replaced, so probably not very long. The electronic versions will hang around until somebody decides that interest is so low that computer storage is better used for other configurations of ones and zeros. I put a lot of myself into the things I write, so a part of me will hang around until nobody wants to read them any more.

I've planted trees and long-lived shrubs and plants that reseed themselves liberally. Truth told, those things have the potential for lasting longer than anything else I've done.

Yes. I feel like we've raised two good people, who will contribute positively to society. That's not a trivial thing, and I think parents who can say that deserve a huge pat on the back.

Something that contributes to the common good? TBH, I'm struggling a bit. I think my contributions have been more on an individual level. Early in my career I helped design and deliver technical training that allowed non-college graduates to get a good paying job. More recently, I've been ripping my hair out to ensure that our employees get their weekly workshare payments when their hours were cut due to COVID. I know this directly allowed people to pay their rent, buy groceries, pay for childcare, etc. That was very rewarding to me, even though 2020 has really sucked, professionally.

But I'm typically a behind the scenes, back office person and I'm OK with that. Not casting aspersions AT ALL on those who cast their sights wider.

My kids are the thing I am most proud of. If I’m lucky, maybe one or two of my paintings will be making somebody happy hanging on a wall at some point in the future.

Interesting thread.

I haven’t talked too much about the newest chapter in my life but I’m now on the board of the Alpha-1 Foundation, which is actively working toward a cure for a disease that afflicts maybe 1 in 3000 people (including me).

It is here where I hope to fulfill Horace Mann’s dictum, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

quote:

Originally posted by big al:
What do you think you might be remembered for?

Outside of people who know me personally who might remember me for a short while after my transition to an afterlife with eternal supply of good beer and great sex, chances are I will not be remembered.

Maybe the deep data archives of some institutions (e.g., Google, Amazon, Apple Inc., Facebook, Library of Congress, patent office, healthcare providers who treated me, education institutions I attended, various government agencies that never expunge old records, etc.), will keep records of me virtually for as long as these institutions exist, but not individual humans.

Nothing on earth will be remembered.

The sun will expand and engulf the earth. And every molecule on the earth will be transformed. Recycled if you will into yet another generation of cosmic dust.

It will be like we never even existed.

The only proof of our existence will be our space probes that are beyond the reach of the expanding sun. But even they will suffer the ravages of time and decay.

Live it up people!

Eat dessert first!

quote:

Originally posted by markj:
Nothing on earth will be remembered.

The sun will expand and engulf the earth. And every molecule on the earth will be transformed. Recycled if you will into yet another generation of cosmic dust.

It will be like we never even existed.

The only proof of our existence will be our space probes that are beyond the reach of the expanding sun. But even they will suffer the ravages of time and decay.

Live it up people!

Supernovae are the great equalizers. Suddenly me and Aristotle will be set to have the same impact on the future.

This question has been gnawing at me a bit since you posted it.

I am getting ready to retire from the New-Fangled Flying Machine Co. after 32 years. I've done a lot of stuff and made a difference in many places, but most of my work is pretty ethereal. In fact, for the last 15 years I've said that in a perfect world, nobody will ever see what I do and that's just fine because I work on what happens when something goes wrong (like this).

quote:

nobody will ever see what I do and that's just fine because I work on what happens when something goes wrong

I hear you. I work with people in "risk management," and their entire reason for working is to be invisible--not just hoping that something doesn't go wrong, but if it does, all their plans seamlessly go into effect and people are left thinking that no one was in charge of setting everything up in the first place.

quote:

Originally posted by Nina:

...their entire reason for working is to be invisible--not just hoping that something doesn't go wrong, but if it does, all their plans seamlessly go into effect and people are left thinking that no one was in charge of setting everything up in the first place.

A couple weeks ago over Broomfield, Colorado, a pilot pushed a button and the procedures for handling an engine fire appeared on one of the screens in front of him, and as the situation developed, with a few more clicks, they got the procedures that guided them through a safe and uneventful landing.

Someone had to develop those procedures and get them in the on-board computers so that they showed up when needed with one button push.

I'm just sayin'.

Everything that is is stardust: you, me, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

I think my legacy is going to be pretty short lived. There are children I mentored and loved, and students I taught who tell me I made a difference in their lives. There are readers who wrote to me who tell me what I wrote made a difference or even changed their lives. How long and how far down the chain of future humanity does that travel? Probably not far.

I don't think much about posterity. I want to suck the marrow out of the present moment as much as I am able. Staying in the present is my developmental task and it has its own rewards.