willy loman and his vegetable seeds; philanthropists and their 'foundations'; people having kids so that they sort of. live on. - all examples of people trying to leave some tangible evidence as proof of their existence/achievements/kind heart/loadsamoney.

do you worry that after you die, it will be as if you never existed?
do you think think that this is part of the human condition?
or do you think it's just a tendency to regard yourself with far too much self importance?

i can understand people doing this for someone else; eg, arthur fowler died, people missed him, they got him a bench so they could have a place to sit and remember him. but this is like arthur fowler buying his own bench so he'd never be forgotten. and i just don't get it.

Making a conscious effort to leave your mark upon the world is foolish in that your legacy is bound to be forgotten, be it within years, decades, centuries, millennia, etc. Assuming the continuity of life, no person's legacy is guaranteed to survive. I believe that everyone leaves their impression upon the world without intending to do so.

(Slightly shitty) example scenario: A man gives a euro to a homeless woman. That same woman uses the euro to buy bread for her son, saving him from an imminent death. Had the man not given her the euro when he did, the son would have died. The son grows up and discovers a cure for cancer. The man can therefore be considered to have indirectly brought about the cure for cancer.

(Slightly shitty) example scenario 2: Your friend is about to kill herself. She happens to have MSN running. By chance, you are online for a few minutes, and decide to ask her to come over. This has a great impact on your sensitive friend and she decides not to kill herself. She grows up and raises a family. Her daughter discovers an alternate way to end global warming. The earth is saved and it couldn't have been possible without you. Hah.

Thus, it's inevitable not to have an influence on the world, however significant or insignificant your contribution happens to be. Creating one's own legacy for the sole reason of being "remembered" is for the naive. I don't consider leaving something behind a desire that is part of the human condition, but rather an inevitability that is part of life. It is the human condition to make one's own life meaningful for oneself, and a desire to leave something behind evinces depending on the individual.

thats right on...the woman who choose to keep her baby and not kill it (choice if that is the polite term) could have had the next president,doctor,or on the flip..murder,hitler,etc...we never know , but we should live these lives God gave us according to His word,not operas..or our desire to be remembered....time will pass and we'll say louis pasture???who was he? oh ya the guy who found the rabies vac.
we still benifit from his contribution even tho we might not remember where it came from rick

i guess everything we leave behind won't really count for much when the universe is crushed and condensed into a singularity anyway, so people should slow the fuck down and stop harping on the lazy ones who just don't give a fuck about leaving something behind other than a fat bloated corpse.

personally i'd burn all my posessions if i knew i was going to die and kill anyone who was plotting some sort of funeral. GROSS. I bet they'd play Wendy Matthews 'The Day You Went Away' and invite old school friends who hated me and would just be there to laugh at my being dead.

This is pissing me off just thinking about it. FUCK THE HUMAN CONDITION. The only condition humans should be in is the state of EXTINCTION.

fuck genocide makes me hard.

I agree, it seems the legacy is just a consequence of the desire to do something with your life.

However some people are eternal. Look at Cleopatra, she's been dead for over 2000 years and we are still talking about her. And 2000 years into the future Marilyn Monroe is going to be as famous as she while she was alive.

Some people are unerasable, unless the whole world gets destroyed.