I don’t particularly dwell on it but, just like the rest of you, I’m getting older.
A few weeks after this post goes live and before the year is out I’ll be turning fifty.
Five-oh.
Naturally, as I was putting together the list of topics to write about in this blogging project, the notion of my inevitable post-existence emerged as a real strong contender… because we might not dwell on it, but we do occasionally remember that someday all that will be left of any of us is memory and artifacts of our time here. If even that much.
Creative folks don’t necessarily make shit because they are trying to leave a legacy, but a legacy of our efforts is certainly a side product of living and breathing and dreaming big ideas that translate into written words or composed music or clever little bits of art hanging in someone’s living room.
Heck, as I walked into my home office I passed a framed cross-stitch sampler we have hanging on the wall that was made by a long-passed ancestor of my spouse. I doubt she sat down to make that, spent hours sewing every single stitch, and pondered whether it would be the one thing that her great-granddaughter someday had left to remember she had ever existed. It’s a morbid thought, but these little things, moments captured in creativity and craftsmanship might turn into exactly that much for most of us—if we’re even that lucky.
Will some painting I’ve already painted be all that is left of everything I ever aspired to sketch?
Are there collections of words and photos yet to be pounded into keys or snapped through lenses that will mark my interest in those hobbies?
What will the legacy of any of our creative lives become after we die? Like I said, I don’t particularly dwell on it but under the category of Death & Taxes I’ll be writing more on this topic as the months wear on.